


The Stars Above Us

by scribo_ad_astra



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Bullying, Child Neglect, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Minor Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25138408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribo_ad_astra/pseuds/scribo_ad_astra
Summary: The stars above us shine brightly; beautiful to look at but impossible to reach. The stars on the ground are much the same way, but I am not one of them and neither are you. A trillion miles lie between that star and the next - connected once and torn apart, hoping to meet again.Misumi and Kazunari are seven years old when they meet each other.
Relationships: Ikaruga Misumi & Miyoshi Kazunari
Comments: 91
Kudos: 96





	1. The New Kid

**Author's Note:**

> I posted [this](https://twitter.com/sankakunoastra/status/1257812760391450625) on twitter a few months ago, and ended up with this as a result. Some details might be contradictory to canon, especially those not yet released on EN server, but canon is a restaurant and I'm raiding the kitchen.

“Did you hear?” A girl with pigtails twisted around to face the boy directly behind here. “Suzu-chan said we’re getting a new student today.”

“Really,” the boy said, not looking up from the book he was reading and hoping his classmate would get the hint. It wasn’t that Kazunari didn’t like Tomoya (or Tomo-chan, as she insisted everyone call her), he just didn’t feel like talking to her right before class was supposed to start. 

Tomoya twirled her pigtail around her fingers and continued. “I hope it’s a girl. There are way too many boys in this class, don’t you think, Miyo-chan?”

“Sure.”

“Nah, it’s a dude,” Masao chimed in, leaning over. He had close-cropped hair and the stocky build of a miniature rugby player. “Takeo saw the application on Sensei’s desk.”

“Boo,” Tomoya pouted. “It’s probably one of those juvenile delinquent types.”

_In second grade?_ Kazunari wanted to say. 

“Heh, maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll be a famous movie star,” tall, freckle-faced Takeo added. “Or a super-rich foreigner.”

_In second grade???_

“You guys are being ridiculous,” Kazunari pointed out as he closed his book. Unfortunately, it looked like his classmates weren’t going to let him read in peace anytime soon. “This isn’t a tv drama.”

“Aww, you’re no fun, Miyoshi.” Masao leaned over and snagged Kazunari’s glasses off his face, much to the other boy’s indignance. 

“I just don’t see why it matters,” he retorted crossly. “Now can I please have my glasses back before you break them?” 

Takeo flicked Masao on his head and handed Kazunari’s glasses back to him. “Dude, you _should_ care. The new kid’s going to be sitting next to you.”

That was true, Kazunari thought as he pushed his glasses up on his face. Sagiso Elementary School Class 2-A had sixteen students and four rows of five desks each. He had drawn the figurative short end of the stick during seating assignments at the beginning of the year, so he was the only student in the back row, in the desk that was furthest to the right and away from the windows. 

“Okay, everybody, quiet down!” a young woman with short dark hair clapped her hands. Rumor had it that this was Yamamoto-sensei’s first year teaching, but like most rumors, it was untrue. It was her third year. “One, two, three, eyes on me.”

“One, two, eyes on you,” the students chanted. 

“Excellent.” Her eyes glanced up at the clock at the back of the room. _8:25_. Right on cue, someone knocked on the door. 

The students broke out into hushed whispers as Yamamoto answered it. Kazunari craned his neck, but it was impossible to see anything at this angle, so he gave up, tapping on his desk impatiently. 

They talked for a few more seconds before Sensei ushered a man into the room. All of the students’ eyes were drawn to him as he walked forward, a hush falling over them. The man was tall and well-built, with short, light gray hair and lines around his eyes. He didn’t look _very_ old, Kazunari thought, but he was definitely too old to join their class. Some of the students started muttering amongst themselves. 

“ _Ahem_.” The man cleared his throat and shifted to the side, and Kazunari finally saw the boy clinging to his pants leg. He was short and scrawny, with pale hair falling over wide, downcast eyes. 

The man leaned down and whispered something to the boy, who shook his head fervently. Then he looked up at the teacher. A brief, silent understanding passed between them before she stepped forward. 

“Class, this is Ikaruga Misumi. It’s his first time going to school, so I want you all to make him feel welcome.”

Well, that explained why the guy looked so nervous. Kazunari felt sorry for him. 

“There’s an empty seat in the back row. Miyoshi?”

He stood up. “Yes ma’am.”

The man said something to the boy again, who nodded and slowly let go. He shuffled down the aisle, keeping his head down, and sat down in the middle desk, leaving one as a buffer between him and Kazunari. Kazunari was fine with that. 

And with that out of the way, class began. The first subject they had was math, subtracting numbers in the tenths place. Kazunari opened his notebook and started copying down the problems written on the board. He got through three of them before movement caught the corner of his eye and he glanced to the left. The new kid - Ikaruga, right? - was fidgeting and looking around. 

“...now carry the three over here-” crap! Kazunari quickly turned back around. If the new guy wanted to daydream, that was his own problem. 

Yamamoto erased the equations on the board and replaced it with a new one. “Miyoshi, can you come up here and solve this?”

“Yes ma’am.” Kazunari stood up and went to the blackboard. Add the one to the five, then turn the four into a three… “Is this right?”

“Exactly,” the teacher smiled. “Good - Ikaruga!” 

Kazunari flinched and looked back. _What the…_. The new kid had gotten out of his seat and was scaling one of the filing cabinets like it was Mt. Mizugaki. 

Yamamoto told Kazunari to sit back down and rushed over. “Don’t climb up there!”

Ikaruga reached one hand up to a plastic box on the top shelf. His fingers brushed the edge, and he pulled it forward. 

The teacher grabbed his arm. “I _said-_ ”

“ _Ah!_ ” he yelped and pulled away, falling on the floor with a thud along with the box. He picked it up and ran to his desk.

Masao caught Kazunari’s attention and twirled his finger around his ear before smirking. Kazunari grimaced. 

The teacher sensed that she was fighting an uphill battle, not to mention she could already feel a headache coming on, so she sighed and went back to the lesson. When Ikaruga got up again ten minutes later, she spoke louder, with a forceful edge to her voice. Kazunari and the other students got the message. 

The new kid ran between the cabinets and shelves, gathering random stuff and dropping it beside his desk. Kazunari tuned out the footsteps as he focused on completing the kanji worksheet and science lesson. In the middle of social studies, he finally crawled under his desk and stayed there, mostly quiet except for the sound of shuffling. 

The lunch bell rang at 11:45. Kazunari got his bento and stood up, joining the other students as they lined up to go outside and eat. Well, most of the students. 

Kazunari stopped and looked back hesitantly. Maybe he should….

“Hey, Miyoshi!” Takeo waved. “You coming or what?”

“Y-yeah, I’m coming!” He replied, hurrying out of the room.

  
  


Misumi hugged his knees tightly as he stared at the clock. 

His grandfather’s words echoed in his mind: _“I’ll pick you up at twelve, so have fun - and behave yourself - until then, okay?”_

It was 11:47. Everybody had left two minutes ago, except for the teacher, who was still at her desk. Misumi couldn’t leave, however. If he did, Gramps might not know where to find him, and if he couldn’t find him he might leave him here.

11:55. He chewed on the edge of his collar nervously. His stomach hurt, it always hurt when Gramps wasn’t around, like he couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful might have happened to him. Like he’d gotten into a car accident, a really bad one, such as the one they showed on the tv last month, or hit his head and got amnesia, or won a plane ticket to Singapore and decided to go without him, or….

12:00. He squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Sorry I’m late,” a familiar voice said. Misumi perked up. 

“Gramps!” He ran forward, using one of the desks as leverage to catapult into a flying leap.

“Oof!” Hakkaku stumbled back as he was hit head-on with a fifty pound human cannonball. “We have _got_ to talk about you doing that.” 

Misumi wrapped his arms around his grandfather’s neck and buried his face in his shoulder, closing his eyes and breathing in the comforting smell of aftershave and cigar smoke. 

“Did you have a good time?”

“Mhmm,” came the muffled reply. Hakkaku ruffled his hair and looked over at the teacher. 

“How was he?”

The teacher smiled, slightly strained. “We’re...adjusting. Why don’t we discuss this more next week?”

“Sounds good to me.” Hakkaku nodded. “Hey, kiddo, wanna get some ice cream?”

Misumi rubbed his eyes and looked up. “In a cone?” 

“Of course!” he winked. 

“Yay!” he wriggled out of his grandfather’s arms and jumped down, running out of the room. “Ice cream, ice cream, triangle triangle ice cream….”

“Wait for -” Hakkaku stopped at the doorway and turned to the teacher with a quick bow and thanks before hurrying after his grandson. “Misumi! Wait for me!” 

They ended up going to the ice creamery downtown (or at least what passed for downtown here), a small building nestled between the post office and laundromat. Misumi got a chocolate scoop in a cone and Hakkaku got a banana fudge sundae and they sat at the picnic tables in front of the store to enjoy their treats. 

“How was your first day of school?” He asked. 

Misumi licked his ice cream, swinging his feet happily. “It was good!” 

“Did you do anything fun?”

“I found lots of triangles! And-” Misumi suddenly spotted something big and orange. He jumped up, but his grandfather grabbed him by the collar before he could run across the street. 

“Let’s leave the traffic cone where it is.”

“Aww.” 

Hakkaku changed the subject. “So what kind of triangles did you find?”

Misumi told him about the paper triangles, and the wood ones, and the tips broken off pencils and old crayons. 

“...and the clock, I was watching it and the two lines-”

“Hands?”

“Uh-huh, they have triangles on them too!”

“Really? Neat.” Hakkaku scraped the last bit of ice cream out of his cup and tossed it in the trash can. “What’d you learn about?”

“...learn?”

“Yes, when the teacher was talking, what did she say?”

“Um...” Misumi scrunched up his nose. “Don’t remember.”

“Not at all?” 

Misumi squirmed. His grandfather sounded disappointed. He shook his head, looking down. 

Hakkaku patted his head. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just try again tomorrow, mkay?”

Misumi nodded. 

  
  


Kazunari always ate lunch on the benches next to the soccer field, and today was no different. He watched the others play kickball as he nibbled on sausages cut into little octopi. The teacher on recess duty blew her whistle, and everyone lined up to go back to the classroom. 

Kazunari wasn’t the first one to notice that something was different. Or rather, back to normal. 

“Where’s the weirdo?” Tomoya asked. 

“Ikaruga went home for the day,” Yamamoto answered, pointedly ignoring the last part of the question. 

Kazunari felt slightly relieved. After lunch on Monday was art class, and he really liked art class, he didn’t want anybody messing it up. Today they were drawing a peacock. 

He leaned over the table and colored in the feathers with a green pencil, slowly and carefully to stay inside the lines. The art teacher stopped beside him. 

“That looks great, Miyoshi. Can I hang it up in the hall when you’re finished?”

Kazunari nodded. “Yes ma’am.” 

Then there was the last class of the day, and the most dreaded: phys ed. 

“Four laps around the track!” the gym teacher yelled. Kazunari paled, he already had to do so many sit-ups and jumping jacks and now he had to do this too? Just kill him. 

“Good luck, Miyoshi,” Takeo patted him on the back and whispered. “Maybe you won’t come in last this time.”

That was easy for him to say. Takeo was a little league baseball player, and the fastest runner in their grade. 

They lined up at the starting line. The coach blew his whistle. 

“FASTER, MIYOSHI!” he yelled. 

Kazunari gasped for air. His lungs burned. His vision was swimming and he felt like he was going to throw up. 

_Just keep moving forward...keep moving forward...can I stop running if I have an asthma attack?...keep moving...I did it!_

He collapsed facedown on the grass. Dead last as always, but hey, he was still alive at least!

“Everyone grab a basketball! We’re going to be practicing drills now.”

Kazunari groaned. 

It seemed forever before the bell rang to signal the end of the school day. Kazunari waved goodbye to his classmates and walked home. 

He dropped his backpack on the floor and kicked off his shoes. “I’m home!” 

Mrs. Miyoshi poked her head out of the kitchen. “Hang your backpack up! How was your day, sweetie?”

Kazunari did as she instructed before pattering into the kitchen and grabbing an apple. “Okay, Mami. I got an A on the science quiz.”

“Great job!” his mom smiled at him. “Anything else happen?”

“No, not really,” he shrugged. 

  
  


The cabin was twenty minutes from town by car, a simple yet sturdy split-level building with sliding doors and a wraparound porch. There was nothing around for miles except the bright blue sky during the day and the shrill cry of cicadas at night. Hakkaku had fallen in love with its seclusiveness, and he bought it as soon as his first pension was dropped into his bank account. 

Once every few months someone from town would drive up and forcefully volunteer to cut the grass down to size, but for now it was allowed to grow freely, waving in the wind, reaching up to Misumi’s knees and tickling his bare feet. 

He pounced, cupping his hands on top of the ground. “Tag!” he cried triumphantly before lifting up his hand to look at the beetle underneath. 

“That’s fourteen for me,” he told the insect as he picked it up and watched it crawl around his hand. “You know, you guys are really bad at this game.”

The beetle flicked its iridescent wings, as if to say _what did you expect?_ , and flew away. The seven-year-old sighed. 

“Misumi! Dinnertime!” his grandfather yelled from the back door. Misumi was inside in a flash.

“No running in the house!” Hakkaku reminded him, only somewhat futilely. He skidded to a stop inside the kitchen. 

They ate dinner together. After their bath, Misumi put on one of his grandfather’s old t-shirts, a really soft one that reached down to his legs, and sat on the floor while he dried his hair. The vhs player was playing an old recording of a play Hakkaku had written. Watching it now made him inwardly cringe (did he seriously think that dialogue was a good idea?), but if it kept Misumi interested enough to sit still for ten minutes, he’d take it. 

Misumi yawned. Hakkaku ruffled his hair. “Time for bed.”

He shook his head. “But I’m not tired.”

“Maybe you aren’t, but I am. Let’s go, kiddo.” 

The second story only had two rooms, the one on the right was Hakkaku’s and the one on the left was Misumi’s. Misumi curled up on his bed, hugging his Sankaku-kun plushie. 

“You good?”

“Mhmm.”

“Good,” Hakkaku yawned and stood up. “Sleep tight. I’ll be across the hall if you need any-” he stopped and looked down at the small hand that had wrapped itself around his fingers. 

He sat back down and brushed Misumi’s hair out of his eyes. “Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?”

Misumi nodded. 

“Okay.” He clicked off the lamp, so now the only light came from the silvery glow of the full moon through the window. 


	2. space oddity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is Major Tom to Ground Control  
>  I'm stepping through the door  
> And I'm floating in a most peculiar way  
> And the stars look very different today_

The rest of the week passed much the same way. Misumi would spend about five minutes at his desk before jumping up and wandering around while everyone tried to ignore him. 

“The sun’s gravity pulls the water droplets up to the- no no no, get back here!” Yamamoto dropped the chalk and ran out of the room, dragging Misumi back in a few minutes later. “Where were we?”

Kato raised his hand. “Evaporation?”

“Evaporation. Right. So the sun pulls the water droplets….”

Key word being _try_.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“Don’t touch that!”

" _Get off the window!_ ”

“Yeah, jump!” Masao whooped. Kazunari inwardly rolled his eyes, not looking up from his textbook. Everyone was overreacting, he thought. The school only had one floor after all.

On the bright side, he was always gone after lunch. Besides, Kazunari had more important things to care about. Like the new volume of the _Magic Rangers_ manga that came out on Friday. The biweekly comic was wildly popular amongst the students, mostly for the playing cards it came with, and it became an unspoken habit for the four boys to go to the bookstore after school together. 

"Five volumes of the new Magic Rangers, please!" Takeo said, standing up on his toes to dump a pile of yen on the table. The clerk took the coins and wrapped up the books. Once they were out of the store, the plastic was ripped off. 

"Ah, the water ranger's on the cover! She's so cool!" 

Masao thumbed through the pages. "Whoa, the forest ranger-"

"No spoilers!" Kazunari cried. The other three laughed. 

"Aww, I didn't get a card," Takeo pouted. 

"Me neither," Masao sighed. "You?"

Kazunari shook his head. Kato smirked. 

"Check it." He held up a silver card. "R- level dragonfish."

"Dude!" Takeo punched him playfully. "You've gotta let us borrow some luck sometimes."

"I told you, you have better luck if you buy multiple copies."

"It's more math than luck, actually," Kazunari pointed out. "They're trying to get you to buy more so the company can make more money. My mom calls it 'a capitalist scheme to instate a gambling addiction in the youth'."

"Your mom's funny." 

Masao cut in. "Hey, Kato, how many copies do you need to get a super-rare gold card?"

"Ten at the least, why?" 

Masao flipped his book around. "They're releasing a new card in the next volume." 

The black and white illustration showed a dark-haired woman with ceremonial samurai garb and a severe look, sitting on a throne and holding a scepter. _The Flame Empress._

"Whoa, I've got to get that card!" 

Kazunari nodded in agreement. Not only was the card's stats impressive, the Flame Empress was one of his favorite characters. She was smart, and cool, and even if she was one of the bad guys she sometimes helped the rangers (as long as she got something out of it). 

He counted on his fingers. 500 yen for one volume, times ten volumes…

Kazunari usually got 1000 yen for allowance. Maybe he could ask his parents for an advance this month. He had been getting good grades, so he could probably use that to his advantage. 

He said goodbye to the others at the crossroads and walked to his house. When he got inside, he dropped his backpack on the floor and kicked his shoes off. A pair of brown work shoes was lined up on the shelf. 

_Papi's home already?_ Kazunari thought. _That's weird._

His parents were in the living room, talking in hushed voices. He hovered over the threshold. 

" _No need to worry_ ... _should’ve said something_ ... _give me a week_." 

His father saw him standing there and quickly changed the subject. "Hey there! How was school?" 

"Fine," Kazunari shifted his weight. "Is something wrong?" 

His parents exchanged glances. "It's nothing to worry about, sweetie." 

"Oh...Papi?"

"Yes?" 

"Can I have five thousand yen?" 

His mom choked. "Why?" 

"I wanna buy something," Kazunari explained, twisting his fingers. "So can I have an advance on this month's allowance? Please? I have all A's in school." 

"What do you want to buy?" his dad asked. 

Kazunari told them about the super rare gold card and what Kato had said about buying multiple copies. 

"Absolutely not," his mom shook her head. 

"Please? I won't ask for anything else ever again in my whole life!"

"Didn't you say the same thing last month when you wanted a Switch?"

"Please please please?" 

Mr. Miyoshi stroked his chin. "You have been doing well in school…."

"Really, dear? Really?" 

"It can't hurt anything."

She crossed her arms. "Hurt anything? You know we can't-" she looked at Kazunari out of the corner of her eyes and clamped her mouth shut. 

"Can't what?"

His dad patted his head. "Why don't you start on your homework?"

Kazunari frowned.

His parents acted weird all weekend, giving each other secretive looks. And not the gross _I-love-you_ secret looks, serious ones. It was hard to sleep, and by next Monday he was almost too distracted to notice something else. Ikaruga was absent. 

“His home planet called him back,” Masao joked. 

Kazunari looked at him. “Seriously?”

“How else do you explain it? I bet he’s telling the other aliens about us right now, and they’re all going to come down and suck out our brains through our noses.”

“That’s mummies, idiot,” Takeo said. 

“Where do you think the Ancient Egyptians got the idea from?” He shook his head. “Better start stocking up on tinfoil.”

There was an air of palpable relief around the classroom, the kind that only happens when a teacher doesn’t have to pause a lesson every ten minutes because _someone_ was climbing the walls. For the first time in what felt like forever (had it really only been a week?), Kazunari could work without any distractions. It was great. 

When he was still working as a scriptwriter for the Mankai Company, Hakkaku liked to imagine what his retirement would be like. No deadlines to worry about, for one. He could write whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And sleep in late every-

“WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!”

He rubbed his eyes and groaned. “Misumi, it’s six a.m.. You don’t have school today, remember? Just go back to sleep.”

Misumi continued to jump on the mattress. “But I’m not tired!”

“Nngh..fine. Give me five more minutes.” He closed his eyes. 

“ _Gramps!_ ”

“Okay, I’m awake, I’m awake.” He sat up and yawned. “No need to yell.”

Hakkaku was pretty good at cooking, which he enjoyed lording over the other men at the rec center during bingo night (being a widower and single father did have some perks, he guessed) but mornings were too early to make anything except toast and coffee. He dropped the bread in the toaster and started the coffee machine. 

“Let’s see…” he checked the calendar. “We have a meeting with your teacher at three, but nothing before then. I suppose we could go to the grocery store, we are running low on rice.”

Misumi reached over the counter and popped the lever. “It’s done!”

“Hah, nice try.” Hakkaku pushed it back down. “We want toast, not slightly warm bread. Now can you tell me what other food we need to buy today?”

Misumi opened the refrigerator. “We’re running low on eggs! And onions.”

“Eggs and onions, got it.” He scribbled it down. “While we’re at it, let’s get some radishes too.”

“Can we get a watermelon?”

“It’s a bit late in the season for that, but we can see if they have any left.”

The toaster dinged. Hakkaku took the toast- fully cooked, thank you very much- and cut it diagonally before handing the plate to Misumi. “Take this to the table please, then come back and get the jam and butter.”

“Okay!”

Once the coffee was ready, Hakkaku filled his mug up to the brim and Misumi’s cup halfway with milk and sat down at the table. 

“Thanks for the food.”

“Thanks for the food,” Misumi echoed, and crammed an entire half slice of strawberry jam-covered toast into his mouth. 

“You’re going to choke if you do that.” Misumi nodded and swallowed. The next bite was marginally smaller. 

He finished two more slices before his grandfather spoke again. “Your teacher e-mailed me again last night.”

“Yesterday?” He looked up. “But I wasn’t even at school!”

“She just wanted to confirm when the meeting was.”

“Oh.” he looked at the bread in his hands, suddenly feeling a lot less hungry. 

“You know you have to follow the rules in school, don’t you? You can’t just run around like at home.”

Misumi squirmed. “I’m trying.” And he was, even if the teacher didn’t believe him, he did try sitting still and not moving like the other kids in class, but it was so mind-numbingly boring it felt like he was going to die after two minutes. Then he’d start thinking about how bored he was, and from there his mind would wander to other thoughts and then he’d notice the pennants on the top of the walls or the patterns on someone’s backpack or the smell of onigiri from the kitchen or the clouds or….

Hakkaku ruffled his hair. “I know, kiddo. Just keep trying, okay? You’ll get there.”

Misumi nodded. “Okay.” 

He put the toast down, no longer hungry at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aliens are real but they weren't involved in ancient civilizations


	3. A Picture-Perfect Autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who participated in rarepair week *\\(^o^)/* You all did an amazing job!  
> This chapter is pretty short and Misumi-focused, so the next one will be more Kazunari-focused and be up by the end of the week. CW for shutdowns/ anxiety attacks.

“Can I push the buggy?” Misumi asked once they were in the store. 

“Sure,” his grandfather answered, stepping aside so the younger boy could take over. Misumi was barely tall enough to see over the front, so Hakkaku kept one hand on the side of the buggy while he skimmed over the list. 

“Let’s see...we should get the rice first, then the produce, the meat and fish, then frozen food…” he mumbled, mostly to himself. 

“And the eggs!” Misumi reminded him.

“Yes, and the eggs,” he laughed. “Let’s get the rice first.” 

The front wheel of the buggy made a loud _SHRK SHRK SHRK_ sound as Misumi pushed it down the aisle. Hakkaku grabbed the extra large value pack of rice (no reason to get the expensive kind when this would work just as well), then added two more bags for good measure. There, that should last them a week. 

“Hmm hmm-mmm, hmm-mmm-mmm,” Misumi hummed. They went to the produce aisle next. 

“That’s all the fruits and vegetables,” Hakkaku crossed them off the list. “Now we need-”

“What about the watermelon?”

“Sorry kiddo, looks like there aren’t any left. Maybe we can get something else instead.”

“Oh.” Misumi frowned. 

They got the meat and fish and eggs, then headed to the refrigerated aisle. The coolers made a mechanical buzzing sound. Misumi hummed again and hopped from foot to foot restlessly. 

“Ikaruga? Is that you?” An elderly woman with short gray curls stopped in front of them. 

“Mrs. Honda? It’s been a while.”

“So it has. It’s good to see you.” She smiled down at Misumi. “And how are you, dear?”

Misumi stepped behind his grandfather. 

“Don’t be shy, say hello.”

“Hi,” he said quietly. Hakkaku patted his head and continued. 

“What have you been up to lately? I haven’t seen you at the rec center in awhile, you know Tanaka’s coming close to beating your bridge record.”

“Ha! Not if I have anything to say about it. My daughter’s getting married, you won’t believe how busy I’ve been with the wedding planning.”

Misumi spotted something down the aisle and tugged on his grandfather’s sleeve. “Can we get popsicles?”

“In a minute, Misumi,” Hakkaku said absentmindedly. “Isn’t this her third husband?”

“Yes it is. And guess what, she says she wants a destination wedding. In Hawaii! If you ask me, that should be reserved for the first marriage, not the third!”

Misumi bit back a sigh. The adults were going to be talking for hours, so he might as well get the popsicles and put them in the buggy. He walked the ten steps to the freezer, reached up to grab the box, and turned around. 

Nobody was there.

“Gramps?” Misumi looked around. They couldn’t have gone far, could they? He ran to the end of the aisle. “Gramps!”

The other shoppers rushed by, too busy to give him a second glance. Misumi squeezed through the crowd. People shouted over him, clamoring, the voices indistinguishable from the squealing wheels and the _buzzing_ and _clanging_ and _shrieking_ and _ringing_ and- 

“ _Gramps!_ ”

Someone ran into him, almost knocking him over. “Whoa, sorry! You alright?”

Misumi stumbled back. His vision was starting to get fuzzy and he felt sick. He broke out of the mob and tore down another aisle, running blindly, until he crashed into somebody and fell backwards. Something fell on the floor and shattered. 

“Watch where you’re going!”

Misumi’s bottom lip quivered. His head was spinning. Someone was yelling at him, but the words sounded distorted and far away. _Please stop please stop stop STOP._ He curled into a ball and pressed his hands over his ears. 

“Are you _ignoring_ me?!”

A worker had heard the sound of breaking glass on the next aisle and joined them. 

“Excuse me, what’s going on?”

The man turned, his face red. “This brat knocked a glass out of my hands! I hope you don’t expect me to pay for it.”

“No, of course not,” the worker agreed appeasingly. She buzzed over the intercom. “Cleanup on aisle four, code W-25.” 

She paused and looked down at the kid. “Where are your parents?”

No response. She buzzed the intercom again. “We have a lost child on aisle four.”

“Misumi!” Hakkaku appeared seconds later. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Is this your kid? Look at the mess he made!” the man yelled indignantly. 

“Sorry about that,” he fished a 2000 yen bill out of his pocket. “Here, that should pay for the damages.”

“Fine, but you should really have better control over him,” he huffed. Hakkaku resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Thanks for the advice, I’ll keep it in mind.”

The man stomped off. Hakkaku crouched down.

“How’re you feeling?”

Misumi shook his head. 

“Not good, eh? Well, we’re almost ready to leave. Think you can make it through the checkout?”

Several seconds passed. He shook his head again. 

“No? Okay, we can stay here.”

Another worker came by with a broom and started sweeping up the glass. Hakkaku picked up the box of popsicles and added it to the buggy - they’d probably melted already, but oh well. His keychain had a large pom-pom triangle that Misumi had begged him to get at the dollar store, so he detached it and gave it to him. Misumi squeezed the fluff between his fingers, trying to focus on the soft texture and not the ringing in his ears or the way his heart felt like it was going to be squeezed out of his chest. 

After ten minutes his mind cleared enough to stand up. 

“Feeling better?” his grandfather asked. Misumi nodded. He felt exhausted, but at least his legs had stopped tensing up and he could walk now. He followed his grandfather as he got the groceries and change, thanked the cashier, and fell asleep in the car, still squishing the fluffball in his hands. 

Misumi woke up as soon as the engine turned off. “Are we home?” he yawned.

“Yep. Help me carry the groceries inside, will ya?”

“Okay!” he unbuckled and jumped out of the car. 

After all the food had been put away and Misumi slipped off to climb the big tree in the backyard, Hakkaku turned on the computer in his “office” (which wasn’t much more than a desk crammed into a corner in the living room). There were still a few hours left before they had to leave again, so he could work on his new script a little. 

Outside, Misumi was sitting in one of the branches and looking up. The limb in front of him had a bird’s nest. He’d been watching it from a distance for a few days now, and he wanted to see if he could get closer without scaring its residents off. 

_Chirp chirp chirp_ , something trilled from the nest.

“ _Chirp chirp chirp_ ,” Misumi repeated. A bird with red and brown markings hopped to the edge and regarded him curiously. 

_Tweet tweet._

“ _Tweet tweet_.”

_Trrrl_.

“ _Trrrrl_.”

The bird ruffled its feathers and, deeming that he didn’t pose a threat, hopped closer. Misumi grinned. 

Hakkaku had typed five words into the document, and now he was on social media. That was the problem with digital writing. It might be faster than handwriting, and easier to edit, but there were too many distractions. Get stuck on a word, and the next thing you know you’re on the Facebook looking at your third cousin’s daughter’s high school reunion photos. 

He shook his head. No, he had to focus. He moved the cursor over to the X, but before he could click it another post caught his eye. 

Misumi was dangling upside down in the tree when his grandfather found him. “Your mom posted some new pictures.”

“She did? Is Madoka in them?”

He nodded. “Want to see them?”

“Yes!” He flipped and landed on the ground. 

Hakkaku clicked on the post, Misumi standing over his shoulders. His daughter-in-law had uploaded several pictures with his son and younger grandson at a park, surrounded by brilliant gold and red foliage. 

“Madoka….” Misumi murmured. Hakkaku clicked on a photo to enlarge it, of the small boy sitting cross-legged on a pile of leaves and smiling shyly at the camera. 

“He’s getting so big, isn’t he?” 

“He is!” Misumi nodded. He couldn’t believe the five year old in the picture was the same toddler that used to follow him around his parent’s big house like a baby duckling. “I hope I can see him soon.” 

His grandfather clicked on the next photo. This one was a candid shot; a young woman with dark blue curls under a trendy knit cap holding the boy in her arms and pressing a kiss to his forehead. The caption read _Autumn is my favorite season! Perfect time to go to the park with the family_. 

“I hope so too.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. is this a violation of child labor laws?

The bell rang at three o’clock, signaling to the students that it was time to go home. Yamamoto waved goodbye to the children as they left and stayed at her desk, busying herself with grading the papers from the day’s assignments until _they_ arrived. 

“Thanks again for meeting,” the man in front of her said. “And sorry for the trouble.”

The seven-year-old was clinging onto his pants leg, having the nerve to look quiet and shy. (Of course, she knew better.) She forced a sweet smile on her face. “It’s no trouble at all.”

Hakkaku turned to Misumi, handing him a pad of paper and some crayons. “Sit tight while your teacher and I talk, okay?”

Misumi nodded and went to his desk in the back row. Hakkaku turned back to Yamamoto. 

“So how has he been doing?”

Her smile dissolved as she took out some papers and dropped them on the desk. “Do you know what these are?”

The man took the top sheet and skimmed over it. “Printouts of the e-mails you sent me?”

“Fifteen disciplinary reports, Mr. Ikaruga. _Fifteen_ in one week. Most students won’t get half of that in their entire time here.”

“Okay, I know it looks bad-”

“Because it _is_.” She turned the papers over one by one. “Refusal to stay in his seat, refusal to listen to instructions, destruction of classroom property, no respect for classmates’ property, stealing, not doing the classwork-"

"Yes, yes. I've read them already," Hakkaku interrupted. Yamamoto put the last paper down and folded her hands on top of them. 

"Mr. Ikaruga, have you perhaps considered that your grandson might not be ready to be in school?”

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” she waved her hand, “If you want to try again next year, or the year after-”

“No!” Hakkaku said loudly. He flinched and looked behind him. 

Misumi ducked his head and started coloring again. 

“No, please,” he said again, quieter, as he turned back. “I know it may not seem like it, but he’s a good kid. He should be with other kids his age, not stuck with an old man all day.”

The teacher pursed her lips. “The purpose of school isn’t to make friends, Ikaruga, it’s to get an education.”

Misumi drew another line to connect the other two and started filling it in. The adults were talking in low voices, and he could hear snatches of the conversation as it drifted to the back row. _Socialization...help...problem…_. The last one was him, wasn't it? He knew he was a problem child, after all. They wouldn't be here if he could just- 

_Listen. Why can't you listen to me? You're only making things harder for yourself, Misumi._

  
  
  
  
  


Kazunari shuffled behind the others as they walked home. Masao and Takeo were in front, talking loudly as the latter tossed a baseball in the air and caught it. Kato was in the middle, not quite as loud, but still offering the occasional comment. And then there was him, silent and unnoticed. 

They stopped at the corner where their paths split. 

“My parents probably aren’t home, do you guys wanna come over and play _Immortal Kombat_?” Masao asked.

“Sorry, dude,” Takeo replied, catching his ball again. “I got a game this afternoon.”

Kato shook his head. “I’d love to kick your butt in a video game, but I have to study for Friday’s math test.”

“Yeah, same.” Kazunari added quietly. 

“You guys are so boring,” Masao scoffed. “Well, whatever. See ya tomorrow.”

“See ya.” 

Kazunari turned left towards his house.

“I’m home!” he yelled as he opened the door, dropping his backpack and kicking off his shoes. Papi’s work shoes were on the shelf again. 

“Nari!” His little sister toddled towards him, holding a pink toy ball. “Cats!” Her little mouth couldn’t quite form the _ch_ sound yet.

“I’ll play catch with you later, Futaba. Is Papi home?”

The toddler nodded, pouting. Kazunari ruffled her short black hair (the same shade as his own) and headed to the kitchen. 

“...called back already.”

“They’re backed up with applications right now, it’ll take a few days to sort through all of them,” his dad was saying. Kazunari stopped. 

“You have tried other companies, right?” 

“Of course I-” he spotted the boy standing in the doorframe and quickly changed direction. “Hey there! How was school?”

“Fine.” Kazunari shifted. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, sweetie,” his mom said, patting his head and giving him an apple. “Why don’t you go play with your sister, she’s been asking for you all day.”

Kazunari frowned. “So something is wrong.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He turned to his father. “Why aren’t you at work, then?”

The two adults exchanged glances. Kazunari’s eyes darted between them. “What’s going on?” he demanded. 

His dad had been fired. 

“Laid off,” the man insisted, jabbing his chopsticks in the air as if to punctuate. “Not fired. The company just merged into a larger corporation and deemed several positions unnecessary.”

“Oh.” Kazunari looked down at his plate. He’d read about people losing their jobs - first their jobs, then their homes, then he’d have to stop going to school and start selling newspapers on the side of the road while his parents and sister lived in a cardboard box and ate cold cup noodles every day. “...Are we going to be addicted?”

“Addicted to _what_ now?” Mrs. Miyoshi asked as she cut up Futaba’s vegetables into small pieces. 

“Kicked out of our house,” he clarified.

“Oh, you mean _evicted_.” Mr. Miyoshi chuckled. Kazunari nodded. “No, there’s no need to worry about that. We have enough money in the bank to last us several months.”

“Which _hopefully_ we won’t need to use,” Mrs. Miyoshi interjected.

“Right,” he winked cheerfully. “I’ll have a new job by the end of the week, I swear.”

“Speaking of jobs,” Kazunari’s mother turned to him. “I think it’s about time we made some changes to your allowance.”

Kazunari’s neck prickled. “What do you mean?”

“Since you’re in second grade now, you’re old enough to start working for your money.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I’ve made a list of chores you can do. Sweeping the floors, folding laundry, taking the trash out-”

“But Mami!” he protested. “That’s not fair!”

“What’s not fair? This is how life works, sweetie. If you want money, you have to work for it.”

Kazunari turned to his father. Surely he would have something to say about this clear violation of child labor laws. 

“Your mother’s right.”

Betrayal! He scowled. 

“You were the one saying you wanted more money, weren’t you?” Mrs. Miyoshi reminded him. “This is your chance. I’ll give you one hundred yen for every chore done at the end of the week.”

He counted on his fingers. Five thousand divided by one hundred was...well, he hadn’t learned long division yet, but he bet it was a lot. 

“But then I’d have to do _hundreds_ of chores!” he whined. “Can’t I get a raise?”

His mom snorted. “Work here for five years and then you can negotiate for one.”  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the wiki doesn't say how old Futaba is so I'm probably way off here, I just wanted Kazu to have a baby sister ^^;


	5. cake and cookies

No matter how many times Kazunari begged, pleaded, and persuaded, his parents refused to listen to reason. 

“I bet nobody else in my class has to work for their allowance,” he grumbled at the breakfast table. Mrs. Miyoshi simply rolled her eyes as she dished up some rice. 

“Sure, sweetie. Don’t forget to put your dirty clothes in the washing machine before you leave for school.”

“This is exploitation.” He told his father as he was putting on his shoes. (He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he’d heard it on a news program before his parents changed the channel.) Mr. Miyoshi was doing the same thing, preparing to catch the bullet train to Tokyo for a job interview. 

“Working is good for you, Kazunari.” He ruffled his hair and grabbed his briefcase. 

Kazunari dragged himself to school, keeping his head down and moving his feet sluggishly. 

“You look terrible,” Kato observed astutely when he saw him in the hallway. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged, walking alongside him. “Oh, Masao said he’s back.”

Kazunari stopped. “You mean…?” Kato nodded. “I thought they expelled him.”

“Yeah, well, apparently not.”

Kazunari sighed. _As if today couldn’t get worse already_.

To Ikaruga’s credit, at least he didn’t try to get up or wander around today. Instead he busied himself with a stack of origami paper on his desk, folding the squares into triangles of different colors and sizes. 

Kazunari didn’t feel like paying attention to the math lesson - it was all review for Friday’s test anyways. He doodled in the margins of his notebook - a flower, a sun, a dog wearing glasses - but his eyes kept drifting over to his classmate. _Fold, crease, turn, crease again_. Once he was finished he’d look over it carefully, almost as if he was scrutinizing for some invisible flaw, then add it to the quickly-growing pile and repeat the process. Kazunari was so absorbed in watching he almost didn’t see Tomoya passing a sheet of paper to him. 

“This is your study guide.” Yamamoto said. “You can work on it by yourself, or with a neighbor _as long as you stay on topic_.” At the last part she sent a meaningful glance to two girls whispering. “I won’t be taking it for a grade, but some of you might want it to do well on the test. That means you, Nishimura.”

“Aw, man!” 

Kazunari looked at the study guide. There were ten equations and five word answers, he could probably get them all done for homework tonight. Also, if he was busy with studying, maybe he wouldn’t have to weed the backyard. Why did backyards need weeding, anyways? It wasn’t like anyone was going to see it. He turned the paper over and sneaked another glance at his classmate. 

His own study guide was lying untouched and ignored. The other students had started talking, some more on topic than others, but in general math was the last thing on anyone’s minds. Kazunari tapped his pencil. 

“Hey.”

Ikaruga’s head snapped up. Kazunari started- he hadn’t actually expected to get his attention. 

“Um,” he felt awkward now. “I... that’s a lot of triangles.” Smooth.

The other student blinked. Maybe he could….

Kazunari reached into his desk, fingers closing around an eraser he’d bought at the beginning of the year. It was white and purple, shaped to look like a slice of cake with a slight hint of vanilla under the rubbery smell. For some reason he’d never gotten around to using it. 

“Here.” He leaned over and dropped it on his desk. “You like them, right? You can have it.”

Ikaruga looked at the eraser, then back at him again. “...thanks.”

“You’re wel- wait, you can talk?” As soon as the words left his mouth, Kazunari felt his ears turn red. “I mean, you’re so quiet.”

He smiled shyly. Then, “I’m Misumi. It means triangle!”

 _First name?_ “I know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Kazunari.” If Misumi introduced himself by his first name, he didn’t mind reciprocating. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Kazu!” 

Kazunari choked. If his ears were red before, they were absolutely scarlet now. First-name basis was fine, but this was...something else entirely. 

“N-nice to meet you too,” he managed to stammer out. 

That was the end of their interaction until the bell rang for lunch. Kazunari grabbed his bento and lined up against the wall, Misumi following behind him. They ended up eating lunch together; Kazunari with his little sausage octopuses, Misumi with his onigiri, watching the others play kickball on the field. 

“Want one?” Misumi asked, holding out the last onigiri. Kazunari shook his head, so he shrugged and popped it into his mouth. A few minutes of silence passed.

“Are you leaving?”

“Nope!” He licked the last grains of rice off his fingers and stood up. “Gramps said I could stay the whole day if I’m good.”

“That’s the old guy who came with you on your first day, right?”

“Mhmm!” Misumi nodded happily as he did a handstand. “Gramps is the best!”

“Better than your parents?”

He frowned. “...parents?”

Was he...did he not know what parents were? Now Kazunari was confused. “Your mama and papa?”

“Mama and papa…." Misumi echoed slowly, then flipped rightside up with a grin. "No, it's just me and Gramps!"

Kazunari had a lot more questions, but he decided against asking. 

After lunch they went to music class. The students grabbed their instruments from the cart as they walked through the door, maracas and tambourines and sand blocks, and since Misumi was last in line, there weren’t any left. He wavered by the door, wondering if he should just sit down in one of the chairs that were lined up on the tiered platform when the teacher saw him. 

“Need more instruments,” he muttered to himself, standing in front of a dismally empty shelf with Misumi beside him. “Cut funding to the arts, they said. Thirty maracas can’t be that expensive, they said.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” he sighed, reaching up to grab something off the top shelf. “Here, you can have the wood-”

Misumi suddenly gasped and pointed. “That one!”

“This? It’s not really...ah, whatever. Here you go.” The teacher handed him the triangle. 

Misumi took the seat next to Kazunari in the front row. The dark-haired boy caught his eye and shot him a quick, tiny smile. Misumi smiled back at him. 

In home ec class, the students paired off to make chocolate chip cookies, with two pairs at each table. Kazunari read off the instructions. 

“It says the first things we need are two cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda, and a teaspoon of salt.” 

“Got it!” Misumi reached for the bag of flour, only for it to be seized from under his fingertips.

“Sorry, do you mind if we use it first?” Suzuki said, already scooping the measuring cup in. Misumi bit his lip and glanced over at Kazunari. He could have sworn the other boy’s face flickered for a minute, but it just as quickly returned to being calm and composed, so maybe he was imagining things. 

“It’s fine.” Kazunari said. 

Tomoya finished pouring the flower into the bowl and pushed the bag across the table. “Thanks, Ika-chan!”

Misumi cocked his head. “Ika-chan…?”

“That’s my nickname for you!” She explained. Her pigtails were decorated with red ribbons today. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah!” He leaned forward. “You have a triangle on your face.”

“I have a _what_ on my face?”

Misumi held up the baking sheet and pointed to the freckles on her left cheek. “See? It’s a triangle! Triangle, triangle!”

“ _Triangle, triangle!_ ”

He turned around, but everybody was engrossed in their own baking. Maybe he was imagining things again….

Kazunari coughed. “Eggs.”

“Eh?” Misumi whipped back around.

“The recipe says we need to put the eggs in next.”

“Oh, right!” 

Kazunari mixed the dough until it turned thick and fluffy, then Misumi rolled it into little balls and placed them on the sheet. The teacher collected the pans and put them in the ovens at the back of the class, behind the yellow caution tape on the floor the students weren’t allowed to cross over. 

It took fifteen minutes for the cookies to bake, so the teacher pulled up a projector while they waited and played a long video about kitchen safety and sanitation. It was boring, and he didn't have his paper triangles in this class, so Misumi was squirming pretty quickly. 

He was interrupted by somebody tapping his arm. "Here," Kazunari muttered quietly, sliding over the instructions sheet. Misumi took it curiously, looking at the other boy with furrowed eyebrows. Kazunari made a motion with his hands like he was folding something. Aha! He nodded. 

Finally the school day was over. Misumi swung his legs and hummed to himself. A handful of other students were sitting on the benches too, or standing around in the grass, waiting for a ride to take them home. He spotted one of his classmates standing under the tree- he didn’t know his name, but it was the one with glasses and dark hair like Kazu, except his hair was shorter and he talked more. Maybe they could be friends too, just like he and Kazu were! Misumi waved. Kato looked surprised, but waved back. 

A familiar white compact SUV pulled into the lot. Misumi grabbed his backpack and ran towards it, opening the door and sliding in before the car even stopped. 

“Did you have a good day?”

“Mhmm!” Misumi answered, bouncing in his seat as he put his seatbelt on while his grandfather turned out of the lot and onto the main road. 

“That’s good to hear. So did you do anything interesting?”

“I made cookies!” He held up the ziploc bag. “They’re circles, so you can have them. And I got to play a triangle in music class, did you know there are triangle instruments? It sounds like _ting-ting-ting_! The teacher didn’t let me keep it though, can we buy one?”

“Maybe for Christmas,” Hakkaku answered. Misumi made a face; that was _months_ away! 

“Anything else happen?” 

“Oh yeah!” He perked up and dug through the side pocket of his backpack until he found what he was looking for. “Kazu gave me a triangle, see?”

His grandfather glanced over quickly before focusing his eyes on the road again. “Nice. Who is this Kazu?”

“Kazunari.” Misumi looked down at the eraser in his hand with a small smile. “He’s my friend.”


	6. the fastest kid in second grade

“Kazu!” 

Kazunari stopped in the hallway and looked back, seeing his classmate run up to him with a beaming smile. Misumi stopped, grabbed his hand, and placed something in it. “Here you go!” 

Kazunari held up the paper triangle. “...thanks.” 

He put the thing in his pocket and went inside the classroom. Misumi sat in the seat next to him today, humming happily as he took a fresh stack of paper out of his backpack. Kazunari opened his book and started reading. 

“Morning!” Takeo said as he slid into his desk. His navy baseball cap was pulled low over his head, making his hair stick out underneath. 

“Good morning,” Kazunari replied politely, without looking up. Takeo shrugged at the other boy’s disinterest - he was used to it by now - and swiveled around to face Misumi. 

“Whatcha making?”

“I’m making triangles! Do you want one?” He held out a green and yellow one. Takeo took it. 

“Oh, origami? Neat. Can I have a sheet?”

“Sure!” 

Takeo folded a little blue frog. “Check this out.” He set the frog on the desk and pushed down the back end, making it jump. “Pretty cool, right?”

“That’s good!” Misumi agreed. “Here, you earned an Extra Super Triangle.”

Takeo snorted and shoved the larger-than-before paper into his pocket. “You know, you’re like, super weird.” 

“I am?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged and grabbed another sheet, this time making a yellow butterfly. 

“Do you think I’m weird?” 

Kazunari choked on his tamagoyaki. _Why did he just ask me that?_ His eyes slid over to the other boy, who was hanging upside down on the bench and watching the clouds like he didn’t just blurt out the most pressing question in Kazunari’s entire life. _Should I answer honestly? I don’t want to hurt his feelings!_

“...Kazu?”

“Yes?” he answered carefully. “I mean, no. I don’t think you’re weird.”

Misumi suddenly burst into laughter, flipping rightside up and tucking his legs underneath him. “Kazu’s lying~” he sang, leaning forward. 

“What the- no I’m not!” His face turned red as he scooted away (personal space and all). “Why’d you even ask me that, anyways!”

“Hmm...when’s your birthday?”

“August first.”

“My birthday’s in June! That means I’m older than you.”

“Yay.” Kazunari said. “Why don’t you go play kickball or something?”

Misumi scooted closer again, closing the already miniscule space between them. “But I want to play with _you_!”

“I’m reading, not playing.” He was about to fall off the edge of the bench. 

"What are you reading?" Misumi asked, leaning over his shoulder. Kazunari turned the cover around, showing a dark-haired girl on a broomstick holding a magnifying glass.

"It's called _Kyoko the Detective Witch_."

"What's it about?" 

"It's about...a detective...who's also a witch." 

"Is there a cat?"

"Yeah, there's a talking cat."

"What do you mean? All cats talk!" 

Kazunari stared at him. "What?"

"They don't really say anything interesting, though. Mostly they just ask for food.”

"What?"

  
  


They went to art class after lunch. Since the only empty seat was across the room, he and Misumi ended up at separate tables.

“Excellent work, Miyoshi,” the teacher praised as she looked over Kazunari’s shoulder. “You really have an eye for detail.”

Kazunari flushed, pleased. “Thanks, ma’am.”

The teacher walked around the room, making the occasional comment and critique. “Suzuki, don’t start your drawing with ink, we use pencils in case we make mistakes.” Suzuki nodded and put the pen down. “Morimoto, I swear on my life if you give yourself a tattoo, I will ban you from using ink-based products for the rest of the year.” Masao made a face, the first line for the dragon kanji already on his arm. “Ikaruga-” she stopped. “What’s this?”

“It’s my picture!” 

The teacher pursed her lips. “It’s certainly...expressive. But you’re supposed to be drawing the fruit.”

“Eh? But I did!” He pointed. “See? That’s the apple, and that’s the banana, and that’s-”

“A failing grade.” The teacher replied as she confiscated his sheet and replaced it with a new one. “Start over. And no goofing off this time.”

“Aww.” 

The teacher moved on to the next table, leaving Misumi to stare at the blank paper while he chewed on his pencil. _What was wrong with my last picture?_ He thought he’d been doing a good job, or at least an okay one. 

“...Dude. It’s not that hard.”

“What?” Misumi snapped out of his thoughts. 

“Don’t be mean, Masa-chan!”

“I’m just saying,” the other boy shrugged indifferently. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” he smirked. 

When Misumi handed in his new and improved artwork at the end of the class, the teacher sighed and stapled a red card to it. 

  
  


Gym class was the same as always. The students clustered around the track, a mixture of dread and excitement as they waited for the whistle to blow. Kazunari’s stomach was twisting with the former, and he once again wondered if faking appendicitis was a possibility. 

He moved to the grass so he could have room to retie his shoes. Misumi was in the field too, crouching down and poking the grass. Kazunari pulled his laces tight and approached him. 

“What are you doing?”

“Kazu!” Misumi stood up. “Look what I found!”

He opened his palm to show a frog the size of his thumbnail. Kazunari stepped back instinctively - small as it was, he wasn’t a fan of amphibians. “That’s...nice.”

The gym teacher blew his whistle. “Everybody line up! Four laps around the track, NO WALKING or you’ll be doing THE WHOLE THING over again WITH ME! 3, 2, 1, GO!”

Kazunari started running, quickly falling behind as everyone else passed him. He gasped for air and looked behind him. 

Twenty feet. He had run twenty feet. _I am going to die here. I know it. My lungs will explode and I will collapse and die on the spot. Sorry Mami, sorry Papi, sorry Futaba. I lived a good life._

He reached the curve furthest away from the teacher and glanced behind again to see if he was watching. The gym teacher seemed preoccupied with talking to someone in the grass, so Kazunari slowed to a walk, still keeping an eye out. The teacher was gesturing and pointing to the track. Oh, Kazunari realized, he was talking to Misumi. 

“Why aren’t you running?”

“Why?” Misumi echoed, looking around. The teacher facepalmed and grabbed the student by the wrist, dragging him to the track. 

“Look, I don’t care if you run, walk, or _skip_ , just start moving.”

Kazunari was halfway done. Just two more laps to go. Just two more….His legs felt like limp noodles. He couldn’t see anything except the asphalt in front of him and he couldn’t hear anything except for his own gasps for air. One more lap. One half...one quarter...his legs buckled as he collapsed at the finish line, wheezing. 

“ _Did you see that?_ ”

“ _Unbelievable!_ ”

The students whispered amongst themselves incredulously. Kazunari caught his breath and joined up with Tomoya.

“What’s going on?” 

“You should’ve seen it, Miyo-chan!” She bounced excitedly. “Ika-chan beat Take-chan! _By ten whole seconds!_ ”

“Misumi beat _Takeo_?” That was unprecedented. Takeo was the fastest runner in their grade. Takeo was faster than the third graders. Having someone beat him was unfathomable. 

Kazunari found Takeo. “Did you really….”

“Yeah.” He puffed his cheeks up, glaring to his left where Misumi was doing cartwheels in the grass. Kazunari looked between them.

“I’m sure it was just a fluke, Takeo,” he tried. 

“Probably,” the other boy said doubtfully. “I’ll win next time for sure. There’s no way I’m losing to _him_.” He muttered the last part under his breath. 

Misumi stretched out his arms and spun around. Kazunari noticed that no one was going near him. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. :kaneki_pfp:

Misumi waved as Kazunari walked into class. Kazunari waved back half-heartedly, dropping into his seat and taking the latest paper triangle being offered to him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome~”

Yamamoto walked in a few minutes later. “Good morning, class!”

“Good morning, sensei.”

“I’m sure you all know what today is.” She gestured to the weekly calendar on the board; under Friday the words _Math Quiz_ had been written in big letters. The students groaned. 

“Now, now, it should be easy if you studied,” she teased. “But before we start on that, there’s one more thing I’d like to talk about.”

At this she picked up a stack of papers on her desk and started handing them out to the kids in the front row. 

“We’re almost a month away from the autumn field trip.”

“Woot! Yeah!” Yamamoto put her hand up, effectively silencing the cheers.

“This year, the first and second graders will be going to Nettaigyo Aquarium. Have your parents sign these permission slips and bring them back by next week.”

Misumi scanned the informational sheet. The title was written in comic sans and on the side were some black-and-gray cliparts of cartoon fish. He’d never been to an aquarium before! He’d been to the fish section of the supermarket, with the big tank for lobsters and the small tanks they kept other live fish in, so he imagined it was like that, only bigger. And the fish wouldn’t be a slimy dull gray color either, they’d be yellow or pink or purple! 

“Kazu-!”

“Shh!” someone shushed. 

“If you have any questions, you can ask me after class. My e-mail is on the form as well. Now!" She clapped her hands. "Who's ready for a math quiz?" 

He stuffed the form into his backpack. 

As soon as the school day was over, Misumi ran outside. 

“Gramps! Look, look!” 

Hakkaku caught the sheet of paper Misumi was waving around and read it. “C-minus?” he cried. “Misumi, that’s _fantastic!_ ”

Misumi beamed, climbing into the passenger seat. “The teacher said it was unbelievable. And I got a sticker in gym class too! We played baseball and I got three home runs in a row!”

“I’m not sure that’s statistically possible, but good job,” Hakkaku congratulated him. “Where’s the sticker?”

“Oh, uh, I lost it.” 

“Already?”

Misumi shrugged, then quickly changed the subject. “The teacher said we’re going to the aquarium!”

“Yep, I got an e-mail about that this morning.” Hakkaku shuddered. It had been a “reply all” e-mail, and his inbox had been flooded with CCs from other parents. “You didn’t lose the form, did you?”

“No way! It’s right here.” 

“Perfect. I’ll sign it as soon as we get home.”

“Are we going to the game club tomorrow?”

“The rec center, yes,” Hakkaku nodded. “I have to give the drama club their new script. Plus,” his grip on the wheel tightened as his eyes darkened, “Tanaka gave me four draw-fours in the last game, I need to get back at her for that.”

  
  


The town’s rec center was a large two-story building with corrugated metal walls and one basketball court that doubled as an auditorium. Every Saturday at 2 pm the senior citizens and retired grandparents would meet up in one of the smaller rooms near the kitchen to drink coffee and play games, from bingo to uno to poker. 

“Ikaruga!” Tanaka waved him over from her table. “You didn’t show up last week, I was beginning to think you’d bailed on us.”

“Not at all,” he chuckled. “Misumi started school, so we’ve just been a little busy.”

“School?” Tanaka turned to Misumi. “How exciting! What grade are you in?”

Misumi held up two fingers.

“Second grade?” At this she looked back to Hakkaku. “Didn’t Honda say she had a grandkid in second grade?” 

“She did mention it, now that I remember.”

“Maybe they’re in your class, then.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. Misumi stiffened and pulled closer to his grandfather. 

“I’ve got to drop this script off for the drama club,” Hakkaku said. “Don’t start playing without me. You coming, Misumi?”

Misumi nodded and followed his grandfather to the gym, where the drama club held their meetings. 

“I have your script for the Christmas play!”

“Thanks,” the head of the club, a literature teacher from the local junior high school, replied. She flipped through the pages. “Why is Clara being chased by zombies?”

“Hey, you just told me to adapt a story based on The Nutcracker.” he replied cheerfully. 

The club leader sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, fine. We can work with that.” She turned around to the club members sitting in a semi-circle, ranging from preschoolers to high schoolers, and clapped her hands. “Script’s here! Clara, Nutcracker, Mouse King - by the way, you’re the Zombie King now, hope you didn’t buy your costume yet - here’s your copies. We’ll start today by doing a full read-through, then if we have time we’ll work on blocking.”

Hakkaku leaned down and ruffled Misumi’s hair. “Do you want to stay and watch?”

Misumi shook his head, squeezing his pants leg. “I wanna stay with you.”

“You sure about that? I think you’d have a lot more fun here, though.”

Staying here and watching the actors did sound tempting, he had to admit. 

“I wanna stay with you.”

“Alright then,” his grandfather sighed.

  
  


For Kazunari, the following week went by in a blur of chores and job searching. 

“It’s all automated these days,” Mr. Miyoshi grumbled as he put on his third-nicest suit jacket (jackets one and two were at the dry cleaners). “Everything’s done by robots. Even the coffee shops have robots now.”

Mrs. Miyoshi straightened his tie and kissed his cheek. “I’m sure you’ll have better luck today, dear.”

Kazunari raked the front yard, scrubbed the bathroom, and vacuumed the carpet. He stayed up late folding Futaba’s clothes and woke up early to help her get dressed. With every task completed, with every check marked on the chore chart, he could feel himself getting closer to holding that super rare card in his hands. 

When Friday rolled around, his mom counted the checkmarks. (Kazunari had already counted them twice, but she insisted on doing it again “just to be sure”.) She was finishing up packing his lunch, while Futaba was playing with some dolls on the floor. 

“I have to admit, you did a pretty good job.” She leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “Thanks for all the help.”

“Okay, okay,” Kazunari said impatiently, looking at the clock. There was only five minutes left before he’d be late for school. “Can I please have my money now?”

“Sure, sweetie.” She handed him two thousand-yen bills. Kazunari folded them up neatly and zipped them into the front pocket of his backpack for safekeeping. 

“I’m off-”

“Bye-bye Nari!”

“Ack!” he jumped away as a sticky hand grabbed his pants. “Mami! Futaba’s getting my uniform dirty!”

“Be nice to your sister,” Mrs. Miyoshi chided. 

He stuck his tongue out. Futaba returned the action. 

“ _And don’t teach her that!_ ” 

  
  


“What’s that?” Misumi asked at lunch. 

“Oh.” Kazunari’s ears reddened as he picked the sparkly doll out of the rice. “It’s probably my little sister’s. She was playing in the kitchen this morning.”

He put the toy in his backpack and went back to his lunch, wondering if all the glitter had made the food inedible. Probably. 

“You have a little sister? What’s she like?”

“Fine,” he shrugged. “A little annoying. You don’t have any siblings, right?”

“I have a little brother!” 

“Really? What’s he like?”

"Madoka is amazing!" Kazunari could swear there were literal sparkles in Misumi’s eyes. "He's four and a half years old and he already knows how to read! Plus he's so cute! Look!" He dug around in his backpack before pulling out a photograph and thrusting it into Kazunari's hands. The picture was pretty worn, with thinned edges and weathered stains on the corners, but he could clearly see a much younger Misumi smiling happily with a missing tooth, sitting in a chair with an infant half his size cradled in his arms.

"This is pretty old, isn't it."

Misumi nodded. "All the new pictures are on Gramps' computer. He shows me when Mama posts a new update, but I wish I could carry them all with me." He looked deeply saddened, so much that Kazunari almost missed the last part. 

"I thought your parents were dead."

“No?” Misumi cocked his head. “Why would you think that?”

“You don’t live with them.”

“Nope!”

“Why?”

“They…” he trailed off hesitantly, a small frown etching itself onto his face. He looked up at the sky.

“They’re busy, I think?” he mumbled. “Yeah, that’s it...they were too busy, that’s why I had to go live with Gramps….”

Kazunari chewed his bottom lip, not sure how to reply. “...You-”

“Oh, look!” Misumi suddenly straightened up and pointed. “That cloud’s triangular!”

  
  
  


Finally the hour of judgement was here. 

“Please have it, please have it, please have it,” Kazunari whispered to the small stack of neatly-wrapped manga in his arms. He tore off the plastic and almost ripped the front cover off looking inside. 

Empty. Empty. Empty. One N-level card that he already had.

_No! Why, why, why?_ He felt like crying. He’d worked so hard this week! And all for nothing! 

“Better luck next time,” Kato patted his back. Kazunari rubbed his eyes. That was easy for him to say - he got two of the Flame Empress cards. 

“Can I have one of your cards?”

“No.” 

They started walking home along with the other two boys. Masao and Takeo were play-arguing again over some inane topic. Kazunari fell back next to Kato and they walked in silence. 

“Hey, look!” Masao suddenly ran forward until he reached a white and red “slow down” sign, then turned around with a grin. “This remind you of anyone?”

Takeo snickered. “No clue.”

“ _Ah!_ ” Masao cried in a high-pitched voice. “ _Triangle triangle!_ ” He broke off into laughter. 

Kazunari shifted his weight. “That’s not…”

“Nah, you gotta do it more like this,” Takeo interrupted. He flailed his arms around. “ _Tri-tri-triangle! Look at that triangle!_ ”

Kazunari opened his mouth again, but Kato beat him to it. “Very funny, guys,” he rolled his eyes. 

“Thanks,” Masao smirked. He nudged Kazunari. “He really likes you, huh.”

Kazunari shrugged, looking down at the concrete. “Yeah.”

“God, that must be such a pain,” Takeo added. “Why do you put up with him?”

“He’s not...that bad,” Kazunari said hesitantly. Sure, maybe Misumi was a little airheaded. And clingy didn’t even begin to cover it. But on the other hand…

“He’s pretty nice if you get to know him.”

Takeo looked doubtful. “If you say so.”

Masao turned around so he was walking backwards. He crossed his arms. “Don’t tell me, are you like, actually friends with that freak?”

“No!” Kazunari blurted out. He hesitated. “It’s, um, we’re more like acquaintances, I guess? I just feel sorry for him, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Masao leaned back and said flippantly, “Just be careful not to get too close. Being a freak might be contagious.”

“Haha, yeah…” Kazunari laughed nervously. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. senior citizen strip poker

“Two kings.”

“One ace.”

“Skip.”

“One two.”

“Five threes.”

“BS!”

Tanaka flipped the cards over. “Read it and weep, Ikaruga.” 

Hakkaku scowled and swept the deck into his hands. 

“Two fours.”

Rain pounded on the metal roof. Misumi was sitting at an adjacent table with some pens and kanji worksheets. He might have passed his math test, but his reading and writing was still, as the teacher said, “in need of improvement”. He traced the character for water and doodled in the margins. 

Somebody set a plate down beside him. “Want some scones?”

Misumi nodded and grabbed one, stuffing it into his mouth. “Mm, fmsh.”

Ms. Iwata leaned down. “Sorry, what was that? I can’t make anything out over this rain.”

He swallowed. “Thanks, it’s good.”

“Why, thank you, dear.” The white-haired woman straightened up and called out to the card players. “Anybody else want a scone? They’ve been approved by our resident taste-tester!”

“Is that an elected position?” Mr. Fujiwara joked. “In that case, I volunteer for the next batch.”

“Sorry, no re-elections,” Iwata quipped, patting Misumi’s head. He reached over for another one. 

Hakkaku slammed his hands down on the table. “BS! I call BS.”

“Again?” Tanaka showed him the cards. He narrowed his eyes. 

“You’re cheating! I can see the cards in your shirt.”

“Why, Ikaruga!” Tanaka fanned herself, looking scandalized. “You’re not staring at a lady’s chest, are you?”

He levelled an accusing finger. “Don’t flatter yourself! Take your shirt and socks off and prove that you’re not cheating!”

“Okay!” Honda threw her deck on the table. “Great game, everybody. Why don’t we pack it up before we start anything R-rated?”

She stacked the cards neatly and slid them into their casing. 

Mr. Satou peered out the window. “The rain’s not letting up. We might be here a while.”

Tanaka stood up. “If that’s the case, I’ll get the monopoly board ou-” 

The room suddenly went pitch black. Misumi dropped his scone. 

The backup generator kicked in a few seconds later, and the lights flickered back on. Misumi ran over to his grandfather and jumped on him. 

"It's just a storm, kiddo, there's nothing to be scared of." Hakkaku said, ruffling his hair. He nodded. 

The intercom system crackled. "Everyone, please make your way to the gym in a calm and orderly manner. A severe storm warning has been issued by the weather service for the next few hours. Again, we ask that you all make your way to the gym calmly and orderly. This is a severe storm warning." The speaker repeated variations of that same refrain. 

The gym wasn't very crowded; only a few other clubs and some youth sports teams had clustered in the brightly lit space. The coaches from said teams were trying to keep the kids occupied, although one or two had started crying. 

"Why don't you go play with them?" Hakkaku suggested. Misumi nodded and slowly let go, approaching a little girl - a cheerleader, judging by the bow. 

“What’s wrong?” 

The girl sniffled. “I want my mama! It’s scary!”

“It’ll be okay!” Misumi took her hand and pointed to the tumbling mats. “Let’s go play over there until the rain stops.”

Hakkaku watched the two kids go to the mats, the little girl doing a cartwheel with Misumi clapping encouragingly. Tanaka took the deck of cards out. 

"While we're here, anyone up for a round of poker?"

"No."

"You sure? With all these fine young men around-" she tilted her head towards the coaches. "We could have a lot of fun with-"

"No!"

  
  
  


“Get away from the window, sweetie.”

Kazunari stepped back. It was only 3 pm, but the clouds were making the sky dark as night, with only brief flashes of lightning for illumination. 

“I’ve got the light and radio,” Mr. Miyoshi announced. He clicked the battery-powered lantern on and set it on the table, lighting up the living room. The family gathered on the sofa. Mrs. Miyoshi bounced a fussy Futaba on her knee. Kazunari climbed onto his father’s lap as he turned the dial on the radio.

“...heavy rain and wind speeds up to ninety kilometers per hour. All roads have been shut down, and citizens are being advised to stay indoors…”

Lightning flashed, followed by thunder. 

“Loud!” Futaba cried. 

“It’s okay, Futaba!” Kazunari said. “Look-” More lightning. “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three - that’s three miles away from us!”

The toddler raised her head up, sniffling. 

“See? You can tell how far away the storm is by counting between the lightning and thunder. That makes it less scary, right?”

She nodded.

“One thousand one, one thousand two...that one’s four miles away!”

“Seven miles,” his mom remarked on the next one. “The storm must be retreating.”

The room lit up again. 

“One-”

_B-TOOM! CRACK!_

Kazunari shrieked. Futaba burst into tears. Mrs. Miyoshi hugged her close, looking alarmed. “What was that?!”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Miyoshi grimaced. “But I hope it wasn’t anything bad. Here, give her to me.”

Mrs. Miyoshi passed the distraught toddler over to her father. Kazunari scooted over to make room for both of them. 

“There’s not much to do but wait it out,” she sighed. 

The storm raged for hours. When it finally let up, the sun had already set, and Futaba had fallen asleep. Mr. Miyoshi set her on the sofa gently as he stood up. 

“I’m going to look outside.”

“Good idea.” Mrs. Miyoshi turned to Kazunari. “Why don’t you get your pajamas on?”

“Okay, Mami.”

His dad rushed back in. “Where’s the number for the insurance company?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s-” he jerked his thumb towards the back door. “Better see for yourself.”

It was a tree. A tree had fallen on their roof. 

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Miyoshi exclaimed. “How are we going to fix this?”

  
  
  


Misumi stood on the front porch, looking at the yard. Yesterday’s storm had passed without much incident, thankfully (they stayed at the rec center until it passed and he even got to show the girl how to do a back handspring!) but now the yard was covered in debris from fallen branches. The mailbox had been knocked over as well. 

“We might as well get started,” his grandfather patted his head, a toolbox in his other hand. “Move those limbs over to the side for me, will ya?”

“Okay!”

Misumi grabbed a branch that was twice as long as he was tall and started pulling. Tree limbs were a lot heavier than they looked, but he was able to drag them without too much trouble. Hakkaku set the mailbox upright and got to work hammering out a dent on the side. 

The weather was nice; cool, but humid. Misumi was picking up the smaller sticks when he stopped in his tracks. 

“Something wrong?” his grandfather noticed.

“I have to go check on something!” He dropped the sticks and dashed to the backyard. Hakkaku raised his eyebrows, but ultimately shrugged - if Misumi didn’t come back in ten minutes, he’d go after him, but he should be fine for now. Sometimes it was better to let him do his own thing.

He raised his elbow to his mouth and coughed into it. 

“Chirp chirp! Chirp chirp!” Misumi called out as he stared up the tree. The nest was gone, destroyed in the storm, but _the birds had to be okay, right? Surely they must have flown to safety, right?_

“...chirp?” his voice faltered. If the birds weren’t there, they must have seen the storm coming and flew away. Yes, that was it. They would have left before getting caught in the rain, or if they hadn’t they could have climbed past the clouds and soared to safety above the lightning. They must be far away now, safe and sound in another tree. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. the birds are okay, don't worry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's okay everyone, the birds are okay! sorry to make you worry :)

“Sorry, how much?” 

Kazunari watched his mom pace the kitchen, balancing Futaba on her hip with the phone jammed under her chin. “And that includes the copay?...Yes, I know that, but we’ve already paid for this month’s-”

The stove beeped. She put the girl down and hurried over to the pot, stirring the vegetables. “I don’t care if you’ve updated your policy! Just-”

“Mami?” Futaba tugged on her pants. 

“Not now, sweetie,” Mrs. Miyoshi looked down. “Kazunari, take your sister outside to play.”

“But-”

“Now!”

He sighed. “Come on, Futaba.”

The grass was slick and muddy. The tree was gone - Kazunari had watched some people come this morning in a big truck with saws and axes and chop it up from his bedroom window. A part of the roof was dented slightly, like it was made of Play-dough and a giant had pressed his thumb into it. The shingles had broken off as well, some already piled on the ground, others still dangling threateningly at the edge. Kazunari took Futaba’s hand and pulled her away. 

“It’s not safe near the house. Let’s go to the fort.”

The fort was basically just a deck sandwiched between two trees, about as far off the ground as Kazunari was tall. He helped Futaba up the ladder and climbed after her. The storm hadn’t done much damage here, fortunately, just made it very damp and covered with a lot of sticks. Kazunari picked one up and threw it over the side. 

“Sit!” Futaba tugged on his sleeve. 

“Where? I’ll get wet,” he pointed out. She put her hands on her hips. 

“Sit, Nari!”

“Fine, fine.” He sat down. Futaba gathered up some leaves and dropped them in front of him. 

“Eat!”

“I told you, this isn't a restaurant. It’s a-”

“Eat!” she repeated insistently. 

“Fine, fine.” He pretended to nibble on a leaf. “Mmm. Delicious.”

That seemed to placate the young girl. “Want more?” 

“Alright.” 

The two year old prepared an eight course meal that would make a Michelin chef hang up his apron in shame, including a full spread of mud cakes and pies for dessert. Kazunari drew swirls in the “pastries” to decorate them as well, much to her delight. 

His mom was still on the phone when they went back inside, stomachs begging for real food. 

“’s M’mi talkin’ to?” Kazunari asked. 

Mr. Miyoshi finished cutting Futaba’s vegetables into bite-size pieces. “Don’t talk with food in your mouth.”

“S’ry.” He swallowed. “Who’s Mami talking to?”

“Just the insurance company.”

Kazunari didn’t know what that was, but it sounded important. “Why?”

“Hopefully, so they can cover the cost to fix our roof.”

“Someone’s gonna give us money?”

A sharp voice rose from the other side of the wall. “END OF THE MONTH? WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S THE END OF THE MONTH, WHAT KIND OF CALENDAR ARE YOU-”

His dad chuckled. “I wished it worked like that.”

  
  


There was a paper triangle on his desk when he walked into class. 

_Another one?_ Kazunari sighed inwardly as he picked it up. This one was purple with white dots, about as long as his hand and half as thick. 

“Ew, don’t touch it!” Takeo leaned over quickly and slapped it out of his hands. “You’ll get infected!”

“...what?”

Tomoya turned around. “That’s mean, Take-chan!”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re such a baby. Stay out of this.”

“I’m not a baby!” her voice raised irately. 

“Oh?” he flicked the paper towards her face. She yelped.

“See? _Baby._ ”

She stamped her foot. “NO I’M NOT!”

“What on earth is going on?” Yamamoto snapped, appearing in front of them. 

Tomoya sniffled. “Take-chan threw this at my face!”

The teacher rubbed her temple. “Yoshida, where did you get this?”

“It was on Miyoshi’s desk!” Takeo said. “I was just getting rid of it for him.”

She shook her head. “You know better than to throw things inside. And Ikaruga, I’ve already told you to keep your triangles to yourself. If neither of you can follow directions, you’ll both be eating lunch inside today. Understood?”

“Fine.”

“What was that?” she said sharply. 

“I mean, yes. Ma’am.”

“Thank you. Ikaruga?”

Misumi had been so quiet, Kazunari had almost forgotten he was there. He nodded. 

It wasn’t the last time someone acted like he had a deadly disease over the next few days. A few of the students complained about how immature it was, ( _that’s not nice, how would you like it if I treated you like that?_ ) but the vocal majority was too loud. 

“I saw Ikaruga drinking out of that water fountain. Better not go near it now.”

“I don’t want to use those scissors…”

“Hey, Miyoshi, give me your hand sanitizer.”

Kazunari rolled his eyes. “Why? Get your own.” 

“Come onnn,” Takeo wheedled, leaning over his desk. “It’s not fair that I have to sit in front of the weirdo. You don’t want me to get sick too, right?”

“I’m sick?” Misumi asked in confusion. 

“No one’s talking to you.”

“Okay!”

Misumi was awfully quiet when they ate lunch. Kazunari felt bad, but it wasn’t like he could do much.

_Masao and Takeo are just bored_ , he thought to himself. _They’ll get bored of this in a week and then start putting frogs in the teachers’ lounge._ Besides, he had too many things to worry about already. 

“What’s that?”

“It’s a spreadsheet,” his mother explained, typing some numbers into one of the little boxes. “I’m using it to calculate our finances.”

One of the boxes turned red. She sighed and hit delete. 

“Are we broke?”

“No,” she said. “Once your father gets a new job, everything should go back to normal, don’t worry.”

Kazunari curled up tighter as he read one of the expense lines. “Would it help if you didn’t give me allowance? I’ll still do the chores.”

His mother wrapped her left arm around him in a half-hug and kissed the top of his head. “That’s very thoughtful, but like I said, you don’t need to worry.”

  
  


Misumi rolled the onigiri for dinner while his grandfather chopped the vegetables. He hummed softly to himself, forming each one carefully and precisely. His grandfather coughed. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m good.” He waved his hand and went back to the cutting board, the rhythmic sound of stainless steel hitting wood filling the quiet once more. His lungs constricted and he coughed again, but this time it didn’t stop. Misumi frowned.

“Are you-” the knife clattered to the floor. “Gramps!” 

Misumi ran over and took his hand, pulling him towards the chair. “Sit down, I’ll get help!”

Hakkaku could only manage a nod. Misumi rushed down the hall and reappeared seconds later with an inhaler in his hands. He shook it and handed it over. 

“Thanks,” his grandfather ruffled his hair after he was able to get the medicine into his lungs. Misumi’s lips pursed. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” he smiled. Then grimaced slightly as he looked at the halfway-chopped vegetables. “Actually, I think I’ll just sit here for a while. Did you finish making the onigiri?”

“I did! They’re perfect triangles!”

“Great. Why don’t we just have those for dinner instead?”

Misumi nodded. A whole meal of onigiri sounded good! He brought the plate over and sat down in the next chair over. 

“Mm. These are delicious,” his grandfather praised. 

Misumi smiled and wriggled happily. “That’s ‘cause I made them super extra triangle-y!”

“Really.” Hakkaku had no idea what that meant. “Well, good job.”

They ate for a few more minutes before he spoke again. “How’s school going?”

The seven year old took another bite of rice. And another. 

“...Misumi?”

“Eh?” he looked up, blinking. “Oh! Uh, it’s fine.”

“Just fine? Nothing interesting or exciting happening?”

“No….” he looked uncomfortable. “Nothing really.”

“Okay, if you say so.” 

They finished eating, and after taking a bath and drying his hair Hakkaku tucked Misumi into bed. 

“You have your clothes ready for the morning?”

Misumi nodded and pointed to the white button-up shirt and dark gray pants on the chair. 

“Good. And Sankaku-kun?”

“Yep!” he squeezed the yellow plushie tightly. 

“Looks like you’re all set. I’ll-” something tapped on the window. His brows furrowed. 

“What’s that?” Misumi asked. 

“Probably just the wind,” he said reassuringly. “Or raccoons.”

Tap, tap. “ _Tweet tweet!_ ”

Misumi gasped and jumped up, throwing back the curtain and opening the sash. “Chirp chirp!” 

The bird hopped inside the windowsill. “ _Chirp chirp chiree._ ”

“ _Where did you go?_ ” Misumi chirped. The bird tweeted some more. “You didn’t get caught in the storm, did you?...Oh, that’s good! Where are your babies?...At the other tree?”

Hakkaku watched the scene play out before him. “I’m in a Disney movie,” he muttered. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, uh, bird?”

The bird pecked his hand. “Ow!” he shook it. 

“She’s just mad because I told her you don’t feed me worms,” Misumi reassured him.

“Right…” he drawled out. “Well, tell her it’s your bedtime and you’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

“Okay!” They chirped some more, and Hakkaku swore the bird glared at him before flying off. Misumi closed the window and snuggled under the blanket once more. 

“Now are you ready to sleep?”

“Mhmm.” He yawned and grabbed his hand. “Can you...stay with me…until I fall asleep…”

His grandfather clicked off the light. “Sure, kiddo.”


	10. top 10 diy fails cringe compilation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for hospital mention

The sky was gray and dreary, clouds thick with promises of rain that would leave a person drenched and chilled to the bone. Kazunari’s mother had insisted on him taking a raincoat and rubber boots along with the umbrella he already put in his backpack. 

“It’s not going to rain that much, Mami,” he’d said. 

She pulled his hat down on his head. “Better safe than sorry, sweetie.” He frowned and pushed it back up. 

That was why he was in the classroom during lunchtime, eating octopus sausages while other students played four corners and duck-duck-goose (some at the same time). It wasn’t raining now, but it had drizzled intermittently as the day went on and the clouds were still there. 

Misumi leaned against the window and sighed dejectedly. “No sun….” A crumpled milk carton bounced off his head. 

“Kazu?”

Kazunari looked up, marking his place before closing the book. “Yeah?” 

“I’m bored,” he moaned, sprawling his arms across his desk limply. 

“What about your triangles?”

“Dunno where they are.” 

Kazunari knew where they were - Nishimura had dumped them in the trash while the other student had left to use the restroom. “Can’t you make more?”

Misumi turned his head away. “Don’t feel like it.” 

  
  


“And that is how you put out a grease fire.” The home ec teacher explained, putting the extinguisher aside. The smell of burning bacon mixed with chemicals made Misumi’s eyes sting. The teacher opened the windows to let the room air out. Luckily she’d been able to catch the fire before the alarm went off, but the scrambled eggs she had been demonstrating how to make were now caked under a layer of ammonium phosphate. 

“Moving on!” she snapped her fingers. “Now, if I hadn’t been able to put out the fire, who would I need to call?”

“The principal!”

“Your mom!”

“The fire department!”

“Yes...two of those would be more helpful than the other, though.” She turned to the chalkboard and wrote _principal_ , _mother_ , _firefighter_. “What do these all have in common?”

Suzuki raised her hand. “They’re all things grown-ups do?”

“Exactly.” the teacher circled two of the words. “‘Principal’ and ‘firefighter’ are both careers, which is what we’ll be discussing this week. Who here knows what they want to be when they grow up?”

Half the class’ hands shot up. 

“I wanna be an astronaut!”

“I’m going to work at Disneyland!”

“I’m gonna marry a doctor!” Tomoya said. “My mama says they make lots of money.”

“Why don’t you become a doctor yourself?” the teacher suggested. The girl stuck her tongue out.

“That’s too much work!”

Several more students announced their career plans, from singer to chef to author. 

“Looks like most of you have a good idea of what you want to be,” the teacher commented. “This week, I want you to research a career of your choice. Find out what the requirements are, if you need to go to a university or a training school, what kinds of things you’d do on a typical day at work. Have a paper ready by Friday explaining what your career is like, why you want it, and how you plan to get there. Now-” her eyes slid over to the white foam that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “Split into groups and talk quietly while I clean this up.”

Suzuki and Tomoya left to join up with some other girls, so Kato moved into the open seat. 

“I’m going to be a lawyer, like my dad,” he said. 

“NBP player,” Takeo added, sliding in. “What about you?”

Kazunari frowned. “I dunno.” He looked down at the flower he’d drawn in his notebook. It looked sad, so he gave it a smiley face. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“I know what I wanna be!” Misumi piped up. 

“What?” Kazunari said. 

“A triangle hunter!”

“What are you, stupid?” Takeo snorted. “That’s not a real job.”

Misumi shrunk back slightly. “It could be…”

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“Ah...um…,” he shrank back even more. Kazunari bit his lip and glanced at Takeo nervously. “By...by find...finding…”

“Like the pyramids,” Kato interrupted. 

Misumi blinked. “Pyramids?”

“Those are triangles, right? And they always have people exploring them for lost treasures. You could do that.”

“Yeah!” he sat up and smiled. 

  
  


“Did anything interesting happen at school today, sweetie?” Mrs. Miyoshi asked. 

Kazunari shrugged, stirring his pho around with his chopsticks. “The teacher caught something on fire.”

“Really? Nobody was hurt, right?”

“No. It was fine.” He picked up some noodles and swallowed them. “But we have to pick what kind of career we want and write a paper about it.”

“What did you pick?” his father asked. 

“I don’t know yet,” he shrugged again. Futaba patted his arm comfortingly. The grown-ups switched topics. 

“The insurance claims fell through. They won’t cover us as long as we don’t pay for this _and_ last month’s premiums.”

“How much is that?”

“Too much. At this point, it’d be cheaper to hire someone out of our own pockets.”

“Hmm.” Mr. Miyoshi tapped his finger. “You know, I’m not doing much this week.”

“Dear. You are on a _job search_.”

“And I’ve already sent applications to a dozen companies!” He said, putting his hands up. “There’s nothing left to do but wait for someone to call back. Besides, if I fix it up we won’t have to worry about hiring someone else!” 

“I still don’t think that’s a good idea…” she said hesitatingly. 

“Come on, it’s a small dent. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  
  


“SH-” Mrs. Miyoshi jumped up and closed the window. 

“What was that?” Kazunari asked. It was the afternoon of the next day, and he was doing homework at the kitchen table while Futaba scribbled in her coloring books.

“Nothing, sweetie.” His mom said. 

_CRASH!_ She closed her eyes. “Nothing at all.”

  
  


“How’s your paper coming?” 

“It’s good!” Misumi answered, closing his bento box. “Gramps helped me research on his computer. Did you know there are over a hundred pyramids?”

“Really? Wow.”

“Yep! And people who find treasures in them are called _archaeologists_! What about you?”

“Oh, uh,” Kazunari looked up, shading his eyes. The sun’s rays were beating down relentlessly without a single cloud for cover. “I still haven’t decided yet….”

“It’s okay!” Misumi said comfortingly. “You’ll think of something.”

“You think so?”

“I do!” he nodded, smiling. “Kazu is smart, so Kazu can do anything.”

“Hah,” Kazunari exhaled, smiling back. “Thanks-Masao?”

Misumi looked up in surprise at the sight of their classmate standing in front of them. His fingers curled around his bento box.

“Hey,” Masao said, panting slightly. He looked at Misumi and jerked his thumb towards the main building. “Teacher wants you at the front office.”

Misumi tilted his head. He hadn’t done anything wrong today, right? At least that he remembered…. “Why?”

“Dunno,” Masao shrugged. “They said something about the hospital calling? You don’t know what that’s about, do you?”

_Oh. Oh, no._ His heart dropped out of his stomach.

“Wait, you actually-” the other boy muttered, then cleared his throat. “Anyways, they sounded really worried. You better get up there quick.” 

_Quick_ and Misumi went together like pie and ice cream, but the dash to the office felt excruciatingly slow. Gramps had been fine last night, hadn’t he? And he hadn’t coughed once since the other night! _Did he have another flare-up?_

He burst through the door.

“Can I help you?”

He trembled. There were only two other teachers in the room, using the copy machine in the corner, plus the secretary at her desk. None of them looked worried. And where was his teacher? 

“Hello? Are you alright?” The secretary asked. “Where’s your hall pass?”

Misumi shook his head. His thoughts were spinning too much to talk. There was a phone on the desk. If he could call home….

“Hey, you’re not allowed to touch that!” the secretary stood up. Misumi jumped over the desk and tumbled to the floor, fingers flying as he dialed his home number. Lucky for him, it was a cordless phone. 

He could hear it ringing on the other side. One. Two. The secretary tried to pull the phone away.

“No!” he cried, fingers tightening around the receiver. Three rings. Four. 

_Please be okay please be okay please be okay-_

“Hello, this is Ikaruga Hakkaku. I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but leave a message and-” the secretary finally wrestled the phone out of his hands. 

“No!” he screamed, reaching for it. 

“Calm down, calm down!” she cried, holding the phone up out of reach. 

“No, no, _no!_ ” _I have to try again! I have to make sure Gramps is okay! I have to- I have to-._

One of the other teachers grabbed his arms, pulling him off. “What is he talking about?”

“No clue,” the third one said. “Isn’t this one of Yamamoto’s kids?”

“No!” Misumi thrashed, trying to pull his arms free. What was _wrong_ with everybody? Gramps was sick (or worse, but he didn’t want to think about that) and nobody cared!

“Oh, yeah, this is the one she told me about.” The teacher’s grip tightened. “Should we call her in here?”

“Probably.” 

Misumi went limp. The teacher let go. He collapsed to the floor and curled up crying, eyes closed and hands over his ears, willing everything to go away. 

“Hey,” the other teacher shook his shoulder. “Are you-”

“ _Ahh!_ ” 

“Ow!”

“What happened?”

“He hit me!” 

“Really? He’s like, seven, don’t be such a wimp.”

“I’m calling the principal in.”

“Did you call Yamamoto?”

“We should call his parents too.” 

"Good idea."

  
  


Misumi hugged his knees in the farthest corner of the room, staring at a small stain on the carpet. There were a lot more people in the office now, but at least they were leaving him alone. _What’s going to happen to me?_ he thought. _I wish Gramps was here._

As if on cue, a pair of familiar brown shoes stepped over the stain. Misumi looked up. His grandfather knelt down beside him.

“What happened?”

Misumi opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. He closed it and shook his head. Then he jumped up and wrapped his arms around his neck. 

Hakkaku hugged him back. “The school called me. You know better than to hit people! I’m really disappointed in you!”

“I thought you died,” Misumi mumbled. 

“What? Of course not. Why on Earth would you think that?”

“But the hospital...you went and, and….”

“The hospital?” he echoed. “Kiddo, I’ve been home all day.”

Misumi slumped against his shoulder. 

“Do you want to go home?”

“Mhmm,” he nodded. 

“Okay,” his grandfather stood up. “Let’s go.”


	11. everything will be okay if you have a triangle to protect you

For the first time since he could remember, Hakkaku woke up to sunlight streaming through his window. He yawned and rolled over, savoring the last few minutes before he had to get ready for- 

_School!_ He shot up. Then the last fifty years caught up to him and he sighed, laying back down. 

_Misumi!_ He jumped out of bed and ran across the hall, throwing open the door. “Kid, are you up?”

Something shifted and twisted under the blanket. He pulled it off. “Hey, you’re going to be late. Why aren’t you dressed?”

“Ngh,” Misumi sat up, rubbing his eyes. 

“You’re still sleeping?” Hakkaku was surprised. In the four years he’d known him, Misumi had never _not_ been brimming with boundless energy once the sun rose. 

“M’awake,” the seven-year-old yawned. He started to get out of bed but was stopped by a hand over his forehead.

“You don’t feel like you’re running a fever,” his grandfather frowned. “Does your stomach hurt?”

The creases next to his eyes deepened. Misumi swallowed. Thinking about going to school _did_ make his stomach hurt, but he shouldn’t make Gramps worry. He’d already caused enough trouble. 

“I’m fine!” he smiled. 

“Really?” He didn’t look entirely convinced. “If you want to stay home today-”

“Really!” Misumi insisted, standing up. “I can go to school, it won’t be a problem!”

“Okay,” his grandfather said hesitantly, then stood up. “Hurry and get your uniform on, then. I’ll go make breakfast.”

He quickly buttoned his shirt and ran to the kitchen, grabbing a piece of toast and shoving it into his mouth. “I’m done!” he jumped up. 

“Hang on,” Hakkaku caught him by the shoulders and spun him around to face him. “Fix your shirt first, then we can go.”

“What?” Misumi looked down and realized his buttons were off. His grandfather started to even them out. 

“ _Now_ we’re ready to go,” he said once he finished, standing up and ruffling his hair. 

  
  


The desk next to his was empty. 

_I hope he’s alright,_ Kazunari thought, biting his lip as he glanced over. 

“What’s wrong, Miyoshi? Missing your friend?”

He reddened. “I told you, we’re not- nevermind. I’m just concerned, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“You know, what happened yesterday….”

“Dude.” Masao stared at him. “You know that was a joke, right?”

Kazunari frowned. “It wasn’t very funny.”

“Yeah it was. You’re just a stick on the mud.”

“But he lives with his grandfather, you know how old people get sick all the time.”

“Not my fault I didn’t know,” he shrugged flippantly. 

Kato shook his head. “You really shouldn’t tease people like that, Masao,” he said. “And it’s stick _in_ the mud, not on.”

Misumi slipped into class ten minutes into the first lesson, giving Kazunari a small wave before slinking into his desk. Aside from oversleeping, he’d also had to stop at another classroom that morning, which was why he was late. 

_“Yes? Can I help you?” the teacher asked. His arms were crossed and he was leaning against the doorway imposingly. Misumi could still see past him into the classroom, with the fifth graders twice as big as he was staring at him. He squeaked._

_“S-sorry for hitting you!” he bowed quickly before running off._

Kazunari waved back. Once the teacher’s back was turned, he mouthed, “Are you okay?”

“Mhmm!” Misumi whispered, giving him a thumbs up. 

  
  


The next few days passed quickly. 

“How’s your project going, sweetie?” Kazunari’s mom asked him on Thursday night. “It’s due tomorrow, right?”

“Yep. It’s all done.” The paper had been written, revised, rewritten, and was now waiting in his backpack. He picked up a slice of beef with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth. 

“Oh? What career did you decide on?”

Kazunari swallowed. It hadn’t been hard to make a decision once he actually thought about it. “I wanna be a doctor.”

“A doctor?” His dad looked surprised. “That’s-”

“A great job to want,” Mrs. Miyoshi interrupted. “You’ll make a great doctor, sweetie, I just know it.”

He nodded. 

“So what made you decide on that?” Mr. Miyoshi asked.

“Doctors get paid a lot of money.”

“And?”

Kazunari paused. His dad was looking at him expectantly, almost like he was quizzing him. “...and what?”

“Is that the only reason you want to do it?”

“What other reason do I need?”

Mrs. Miyoshi shot a pointed look at her husband. “There’s no shame in wanting a well-paying job, sweetie. Unlike some men I know-”

“This again? I’ve told you a million times, I’m doing everything I can-”

“Try telling that to the bank-”

“Can I be excused,”Kazunari mumbled. He didn’t wait for an answer before standing up and taking his plate to the sink. 

  
  


Misumi crouched into position, eyeing the ground in front of him. The stone floor was inlaid with symbols, rocks carved with pictures of birds and cats and snakes. If he could get through here without triggering any traps, there would be untold treasures awaiting him on the other side. If he misstepped, well….

He ran forward a few steps, vaulting into a side handspring and landing at the top of the stone steps that led down to the next chamber. _Safe!_

The steps creaked and rumbled, slowly tilting as they transformed into a slide. Misumi gasped, fingernails scrabbling against the damp walls for purchase. He could hear something _slithering_ on the bottom. He didn’t want to fall into a pile of snakes! The only thing he could do was jump over the side and directly down. Which is what he did. 

“Cannon-triangle!” he yelled, and leapt onto the sofa. 

“Misumi! What have I told you about jumping off the stairs!” His grandfather yelled from the kitchen. He rolled over. 

“Sorry, Gramps!” 

Just a few more chambers to go until he found the treasure. He jumped onto the armchair, then the ottoman, then climbed up the doorframe leading to the kitchen. His grandfather watched him, half-amused. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m an archaeologist!” he declared, hanging from the top of the doorframe. “I’m finding treasure like in that play we watched!”

“Really?” Hakkaku chuckled. “Well, I don’t think I have any treasure here, but would onigiri do?”

Misumi pretended to think about it. “Hmm...okay!” He let go and dropped to the floor. 

His grandfather set a plate of onigiri on the table. Misumi swung his legs as he ate the snack, his grandfather sipping coffee as he sat across from him. As he ate, his eyes were drawn to the refrigerator. The right side of the fridge was covered with his drawings, jam-packed and overlapping so much that older layers had been completely obscured. His grandfather had hung some of his schoolwork up there too, the few sheets of stark monochrome sticking out like a sore thumb against the rainbow of crayons and markers. 

The left side was much neater, with only a magnet of emergency numbers in case of an earthquake, a postcard of a dark-haired woman in a pink and gold sari posing under a palm tree with the words _Welcome to Singapore!_ printed on the bottom corner, and a shopping list. 

“We need to get more rice,” Misumi observed as he read off the list. “We’re almost out.”

“Already? I just bought ten bags last week.”

“No, we need a lot more! Like twenty bags. Or fifty!”

His grandfather choked on his coffee. “What are we going to do with fifty bags of rice?”

“Make really big onigiri. Lots and lots of giant onigiri!”

“I’ll add it to the list then.”

  
  


Friday came. Misumi turned in his project and got a B with a note about how he “spent too much time talking about the pyramids and not what it took to actually be an archaeologist”. Kazunari got an A and an impersonal, _good job_.

The bell rang and the students started dispersing, chattering away as they left the classroom. Kazunari pretended to shuffle through his pencil box. 

“Hey,” Kato stopped at his desk. “The others are waiting. Are you coming to the bookstore with us?”

“Oh, uh…” What could he say? That he gave his allowance back to his mom because looking at the money he didn’t really need made him feel bad? “I’m not, um, I have other things to….”

“I see.” Kato’s eyes shifted to the desk next to his, narrowing ever so slightly. 

“Sorry,” Kazunari swallowed. “I’ll come next time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he stood up. “See you next week, Miyoshi. You too, Ikaruga.”

“Bye!” Misumi waved. He turned to Kazunari after their classmate left. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“Eh? But you said-”

“It’s nothing. Doesn’t matter.” He shoved his pencil case into his backpack and stood up, ready to speed-walk home to avoid the others, when something caught his sleeve. He looked back.

“Ah,” Misumi let go of his shirt quickly, face flushing. He took something out of his pocket and placed it in Kazunari’s hands. He squinted. 

“A triangle?” _Another one?_

Misumi nodded. “Kazu looks like he needs it. Everything will be okay if you have a triangle to protect you!” he added with a smile. 

No, they wouldn’t. Triangles wouldn’t fix his problems any more than wishing on a falling star or finding a four-leaf clover would. Still, he shoved it into his pocket and mumbled a quick “thanks” before hurrying away. 


	12. triangle, triangle, circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: ableism, institutionalization mention

They started a new project in art class next week. Misumi liked art class. He drew a triangle as big as his hand and colored it in with a light blue pencil. Then he added a smaller triangle next to it and colored it yellow. The shapes still looked lonely in the vast abyss of white, so he added a bunch of smaller triangles around it. _Much better._

He frowned. Something was still missing. Maybe he should add another triangle...oh!

He perked up and added a tiny, light purple circle next to the yellow triangle. It didn’t fit in with the others, but that was okay! The triangles didn’t care that the circle was different from them. 

“We’re glad you’re here,” Misumi made the big triangle say. He moved his finger to the yellow triangle. “Let’s play together!”

“Who are you talking to?”

Misumi looked up. His classmate was staring at him from across the table, lip curling back into a sneer. “Nobody,” he mumbled. 

“Only crazy people talk to nobody,” Masao snorted. 

“M’not crazy…”

“Yeah you are. My brother’s a p-sychiatrist and he knows all about crazy people. They have to lock them in padded rooms and tie their arms together so they don’t murder everyone else.”

Misumi covered his ears, but it didn’t do much to block out the noise. “That’s what they’re gonna do to you."

“No-!”

“Shh, the teacher’s coming!” 

"Morimoto," the teacher crossed her arms. "If you're talking, I expect you to have finished already." 

"Almost, ma'am," Masao said sweetly. "I was just helping Ikaruga out. You know, since I don't want him to get another F."

"Hmm. That's thoughtful of you, but focus on your own work right now." She moved over to Misumi, looked down at his paper, and sighed. "What is this?"

Misumi tilted his head up. "It's my-" what were they supposed to be making again? "Portrait!"

The teacher pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's not a portrait. A portrait is a picture of a person. Were you not listening?"

"But...it is?" Misumi was confused. "See? That's me, and that's my-"

"Give me the paper." He did so reluctantly. The teacher snatched it away and replaced it with a blank one. "I'll give you one more chance to start over. Don't mess around this time."

She took his drawing back to her desk. Misumi bit his knuckle. Again, he did something wrong _again_. 

He reached for another pencil. The bin was yanked away as his fingers brushed it. 

"You already have those pencils. Don't spread your weirdo germs to us."

The new paper lay there innocently, taunting him. Misumi hesitantly brought the black pencil to the paper, but he couldn’t bring himself to draw on it. 

“This wouldn’t be a problem if you would pay attention,” the teacher said. She had asked him to stay behind after he turned in the blank paper.

Misumi mumbled something, interlocking his fingers. The teacher sighed and leaned back in her chair. 

“Look, you may think it doesn’t matter if you pass this class or not. And I’ll be honest, in the grand scheme of things, a second grade elective probably won’t. But if you don’t start trying now, you’re not going to when it _does_ matter.”

He looked down. “M’sorry.”

The teacher scribbled something down on a scrap of paper and gave it to him. “Here, give this to your teacher to let her know I kept you.” 

Misumi nodded and walked away before stopping at the door and looking back. “Can I...Can I have my first picture?”

The teacher waved her hand. “Your friend already offered to take it for you.”

“Really? Kazu did?”

“...Miyoshi? No, Yoshida did.”

Misumi swallowed. “Oh.”

  
  


_Sinoatrial nodes located in the right atrium generate electric pulses that cause the heart to contract via the atrioventricular node. Oxygen enters through the superior and interior venae cavae before migrating through the right atrium and right-_

“Miyoshi? What are you doing here?”

Kazunari looked up. “Hi, Kato.”

The other boy put the stack of books he was holding down on the table and sat down in the chair next to him. 

“Are your parents late?”

Kato toed an indention in the carpet. “Dad said his company’s working overtime this week.”

“Oh.”

“What about you? Your house is close enough to walk, isn’t it?”

“I was just about to leave.” Kazunari shut the textbook. (His plan of teaching himself medical stuff and graduated med school at 16 wasn’t working out as well as he’d hoped. Maybe if somebody made an anime about this he could learn better.) 

Kato pressed his lips together. “Oh.”

Kazunari frowned. “Is...is something wrong?”

“It’s just…” he shook his head. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Kato-”

“You haven’t gone to the park or the bookstore with us in the last two weeks, Kazunari,” he blurted out. Kazunari drew back slightly, surprised at the use of his given name from the usually formal boy. “And you never talk to me or Masao or Takeo in class anymore either. It’s like you're avoiding us. Like you don’t want to be our...don’t want to be _my_ friend anymore.” He paused. “Is it because I didn’t give you my extra gold card?”

“No!” Kazunari yelped. The librarian across the room shushed him.

“No,” he repeated quietly. “That’s not true, Ka- Koji, you know that’s not true.”

“It’s because of him, isn’t it.” It was a statement, not a question, but still Kazunari vehemently shook his head. 

“No!” he whisper-yelled. “It’s…” he sighed. “My dad lost his job, okay? I can’t go to the park or the bookstore because I have to help my mami with my little sister after school.” That was a half-truth. He did play with Futaba while Mami and Papi worked, but it wasn’t like they were forcing him to. 

“What about in class?”

“Sorry,” he looked down. “I guess I was just worried.” And then there was the fact that Masao and Takeo _still_ hadn’t gotten tired of making fun of Misumi, who practically hung off him like a stray puppy. He even had the droopy eyes to match. Kazunari couldn’t be around both of them at the same time, and the “triangle alien” was too clingy to give him much of a choice. It was simple: the less he interacted with his friends, the less Misumi interacted with his friends. 

“That’s good,” Kato looked relieved. “About- about still wanting to be friends, I mean. Not the stuff with your dad and all.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologised again. 

  
  


Misumi disappeared once the lunch bell rang, so Kazunari ate lunch alone. Mami hadn’t had time to decorate his bento like she usually did, so the tiny sausage octopuses were just plain sausages. Kazunari poked two small indentations and a curve with his fingernail. There, now it was a smiley not-octopus sausage. 

He bit off its head. 

“Heads up!”

He looked up just in time to see a dodgeball flying over his head. “Ah!” he yelped and ducked down. It ricocheted off the chain-link fence and around the corner of the building.

“Nice catch!” Takeo laughed. “Can you get that for us?”

“Sure.” Kazunari closed his bento and stood up. The side of the school was a narrow, alley-like space, with a brick wall on one side, a fence on the other, and just enough space for a garbage truck to back in and empty out the dumpster against the wall. 

Kazunari scrunched up his nose as he picked up the ball. He turned around and stopped. Misumi was standing on his toes, elbows deep as he sifted through the garbage. 

“Hey.” Kazunari said. Misumi ignored him. “Hey, what-”

“Yo, Miyoshi! What’s taking so-”

_Crap!_ “Nothing!” he said quickly, but it was too late. 

“Ew, gross!” Takeo laughed. “What’s he doing?”

“Three guesses what he’s looking for,” Masao snickered, stepping forward. “Hey! There’s triangles on the bottom of the ocean, you should go there!”

“Or outer space!” Takeo added. 

“Yeah, without a helmet!” 

The ball rolled off to the side as Kazunari dropped it. 

“You heard that, right?” Masao inched closer, speaking louder. Misumi continued to ignore them. “Or is breathing and listening too hard to do at the same time? Why don’t you-”

Misumi suddenly gasped, reaching in further to pull out a sheet of paper with a satisfied smile. It was crumpled and stained, but Kazunari could make out the bright colors and geometric patterns. 

He turned around and started to walk away. Masao stepped in front of him. “Hey, I’m still talking to you!” 

Misumi flinched and stepped back. 

“You know, if I was trying to get something out of the trash, I’d at least get something worthwhile. Takeo was being nice by throwing your garbage out for you.”

“Mhmm, you should really thank me.”

Misumi held the paper tighter to his chest, looking down. Masao frowned. He reached up and snatched it out of his hands.

“Ah!” Misumi cried out in surprise. 

“It’s just a stupid art project! Your parents are going to throw it out anyway, we’re doing you a favor here!” He ripped the paper in half, again and again and again, until the pieces fluttered to the ground like confetti. 

Masao stepped back, picking up the ball. “See ya later, freak.”

“Don’t forget,” Takeo crossed his hands across his throat and stuck his tongue out. “Outer space, no helmet!” 

The two of them walked away. Misumi knelt down and started picking up the fragments. 

_They’re too small,_ Kazunari thought. _There's no point._

He crouched down and picked up a scrap of paper as big as his thumb. Misumi's head snapped up, eyes wide. Kazunari held out the paper. 

"Here."

Misumi smiled. "Thanks, Kazu," he said softly as he took it. 

Was he _serious_? Kazunari clenched his fist. "Don't-" He wanted to say _don't thank me_ , but the words died on his tongue. 

Misumi tilted his head quizzically. Kazunari shook his head and stood up. "Come on. There's tape in the library."


	13. ding! ding! ding! and other various triangle noises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone had a happy new year!  
> The song in this chapter is [Okina Kuri No Ki No Shita De ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxPTz2s3PXc)/ Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree.

The tape did little to hold the tattered paper together, the end result looking even more shoddy. 

“...sorry,” Kazunari said lamely as they both looked down at the result of their work. “maybe you can make another one?”

Misumi hummed noncommittally. Kazunari looked up. The other boy caught his eye and smiled quickly. “Thanks for helping me!”

There it was again - _thank you_. Kazunari pushed his glasses up. 

“No problem,” he swallowed. “I should...I should get back to class.” It had already been several minutes since the bell rang. He didn’t want to get in more trouble than he was already in. “Are you coming?”

Misumi was still staring down at the paper. 

“Hey-”

“Huh?” he blinked. “Oh! Um, I’ll catch up with you!”

Kazunari paused, then shrugged. “Okay, see ya.” 

“Right, see ya!” Misumi smiled and waved. Once his friend was out of sight he dropped his hand, feeling his shoulders slump. In any case, he couldn’t give this picture to Gramps. He folded it up slowly, pausing every few seconds when his fingers got stuck on the tape, and dropped it in the recycling bin. 

The library wasn’t very big, but the shelves were tall and arranged in a labyrinthine pattern, so it would be easy for a second grader to get lost. Misumi peeked out from behind the shelf. There were some upperclassmen using the computers in the middle of the room, but not much else. He turned around. Maybe he could find books about triangles here. 

“Your teacher called me again today.”

Misumi looked up from his pansotti. “Why?”

Hakkaku looked at him. It wasn’t a disappointed look, exactly, but it still made him squirm.

“Why did you skip class?”

“Wasn’t feeling good,” he mumbled. It wasn’t a lie, at least. 

“The nurse didn’t call me.”

“Didn’t go to the nurse.” He took another bite of pasta and swallowed it. “Was in the library.”

“Why would you go to the library?”

Misumi shrugged. Hakkaku opened his mouth, but decided not to press the issue farther. 

“Okay, next time you feel sick, go see the nurse. Got it?”

He nodded. Hakkaku ruffled his hair before going back to eating pansotti. (He was running out of recipes. Maybe his next writing venture should be a cookbook? _101 Meals For Picky Eaters That Only Eat One Shape_. Yeah, that’d fly off the shelves.)

“Did you not have any art projects this week?”

Misumi looked down. “Lost it.”

“You lost it?”

He didn’t answer.

“Just like you lost the origami paper the teacher gave you?”

“M’sorry,” he mumbled. Hakkaku sighed.

“I know you are, kiddo, but you really need to be more careful.”

Misumi nodded.

The weekend passed mostly uneventfully. Kazunari had checked out a biology book from the library, so he read it to the sounds of hammering and the occasional “Sh- _shoot_!” Mami had yelled at Papi when he said a bad word with Futaba playing outside to hear, so now he was extra careful. Misumi learned to play Texas Hold-em while his grandfather spoke to the theatre club director (something Hakkaku hadn’t been particularly pleased to find out). 

Kato approached Kazunari in the hallway on Monday. “Here.”

He was holding out a card. Kazunari stared at it in a mixture of disbelief and confusion. “You’re giving me your Flame Empress?”

“It’s like you said, I already have two.”

“But- but what about your double power? I thought you were going to play against the third graders….”

“What’s that?” Misumi asked, peering over his shoulder. 

“I’ll make do with the silver cards,” he smiled wryly. “Bet nobody else has three Forest Rangers.”

Kazunari shook his head. “I can’t pay you back.”

“Just take it, Miyoshi. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He hesitated, fingers closing around the plastic. “...right.” 

“Hi! I’m Misumi!”

Kato shifted. “I know.”

“Do you like triangles?”

“Um…” he stepped back. “I’ll see you in class, Miyoshi.”

“Oh,” Misumi tilted his head as the other boy hurried away. “He didn’t answer my question.”

Kazunari bit back a frustrated sigh. “You know, people might actually talk to you if you talked about more than one thing.”

Misumi blinked slowly.

“Like, not triangles.”

Another blink. “But triangles are the best thing in the world!”

“Why?”

“Because they’re so...triangle-y!”

_That doesn’t even make any sense!_ Kazunari wanted to say. 

They went inside the classroom, Misumi still chattering about the finer points of triangle appreciation. Takeo and Masao looked at Kazunari, then to each other, smirking. He felt his stomach twist. 

“Good morning,” he said quietly as he slid into his desk.

“Hey.”

“Yo.”

“Hi!” Kazunari winced. _Please, no. For the love of everything holy, please learn to take a hint today._

For better or worse, Masao ignored him. “We’re planning on playing some games at my place after school.”

“Is your stepdad going to be home?”

“Dunno,” he shrugged. “So are you coming, or are you still being a nerd?”

“No- I mean-”

Kato rolled his eyes. “Lay off him, Morimoto. I already told you why he couldn’t hang out with us.” 

Kazunari nodded, although part of him was bothered by Kato telling everyone without asking him. “I can come over. If that’s okay.”

“Course it is!” Masao grinned. “We can play 2v2 that way.” Then he leaned forward and whispered, “As long as it’s just you, okay?”

“Right,” Kazunari whispered back. 

“What did he say?” Misumi leaned over. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Kazunari muttered. 

“Did he invite you to his house?” He bounced up and down. “That’s nice! You can come to my house too if you want!” 

“Yeah, _Kazu_ ,” Takeo snickered. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Misumi stopped bouncing. 

Kazunari wanted to slide down to the floor. “Yeah, uh...maybe later.” 

“Under the spreading chestnut tree ( _ding!_ )

There we sit both you and me ( _ding!_ )

Let’s play together nicely ( _ding!_ )

Under the spreading chestnut- ( _ding ding!_ )”

“Stop, stop.” The music teacher paused the CD. “Ikaruga, you’re too early again. Remember, wait for the line to end, then your part comes in. And Nishimura, go easier on the maracas, we still need to hear the lyrics. Alright, one, two, three-” he hit play. The song started up again. 

Kazunari mumbled the words quietly, tapping his percussion block on every fourth beat. He didn’t want to get in trouble for not singing, but the others were loud enough that it didn’t matter much. Especially since most of the parents would be paying attention to Tomoya and the others doing the dance moves up front. 

“There we sit both you and me, let’s play together nicely-”

The background noise faded away as Misumi stared wordlessly at the instrument he was holding. It wasn’t a very big triangle, sure, but it was so shiny! And it made such a pretty sound, so clear and delicate and sharp at the same time. He held it up and tapped on it lightly. _Ding!_ He smiled. _Ding! Ding ding ding!_

“A- _hem_.”

Misumi’s eyes snapped open. The teacher was in front of him, arms crossed. He realized the music had stopped again. 

“If you keep being disruptive, I’ll have to take that away.”

Misumi squeezed the cold metal. _No!_ He nodded. 

The teacher went back to the front of the room. Misumi bit his lip; he couldn’t mess up, if he lost focus for a single second then he’d lose his precious triangle and- 

_“God, this sucks."_

_“Shh, don’t say that.”_

Kazunari nudged him. Misumi glanced up, catching his eye. The dark-haired boy was mouthing something while nodding. Misumi tilted his head. 

“Under the spreading chestnut tree-” Kazunari started singing, still softly but more clearly than what he was mumbling before. He nodded again. Misumi tapped the triangle. _Ding!_

“There we sit-”

“both you and me,” Misumi joined in. _Ding!_ “Let’s play together nicely.” 

Kazunari felt his neck prickle. He could hear Masao and Kato whispering behind him.   
“ _Come on, like you’re not thinking the same thing!_ ”

“ _It’s still not nice._ ”

“Oh, please,” Masao snorted, leaning back and resting his foot on Misumi’s chair. “Watch me.”

“Under the- ah!” Misumi fell to the floor.

The music stopped. “What is it this time?”

Suzuki raised her hand. “Masao pushed Ikaruga!”

“No I didn’t!” Masao cried, then hissed, “ _tattletale!_ ”

The teacher rubbed his temples. “Morimoto, is that true?”

“No, sir!”

Takeo raised his hand. “I didn’t see him do anything. I think Ikaruga did it on purpose.”

“...same here,” Kato added quietly.

“Hmm.” The teacher tapped his foot. “Miyoshi?”

The temperature around Kazunari seemed to drop ten degrees. “Y-yes, sir.”

“You sit next to him. Did you see anything?”

“I-” His throat felt dry. Misumi was staring up at him from the floor, wide-eyed. No, he turned around, _everybody_ was staring at him. Takeo narrowed his eyes coldly. Kato looked at him pleadingly. 

_We’re your friends, aren’t we?_ he seemed to say. Kazunari swallowed and looked down. 

“I didn’t...see anything either.”

The teacher exhaled. “Thank you. Alright, Ikaruga,” he pointed to the door. “Hallway.”

“But-”

“ _Now._ ”

Misumi stood up slowly. 

“And leave the triangle in here!”

“You’re welcome,” Masao smirked under his breath. 

Kazunari felt sick. 

He didn’t see Misumi after class, although it wasn’t for lack of trying. Amano said she saw him in the library. Nishimura said he saw him in the kitchen. One of the sixth-grade teachers found him lining up the conical flasks in the science lab, after the bell rang. 

“What are you doing here? Your teacher’s been looking for you.”

Misumi pointed at the flasks. “Can I have one of the triangles?” He’d already put one in his backpack, but it couldn’t hurt to ask for more. 

“No. Now come on, school’s over. It’s time to go home.”

So Kazunari didn’t see Misumi until the next day, when he spotted him outside of the class, looking around hesitantly. He started walking faster towards him. 

“Hey-”

“Hey, Miyoshi,” Takeo cut in front of him. “You got yesterday’s history homework?”

Kazunari leaned over to see past him- Misumi was gone. He sighed and turned back.

“Yeah, what about it?” 

“I need it,” Takeo held his hand out. “Please? Practice ran late last night, so I didn’t have time to do it.”

Kazunari hesitated. He didn’t want to get caught cheating, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to be accused of being a snob either. “...okay, but don’t copy it directly.”

“Well, duh. I’m not stupid,” he rolled his eyes. 

Kazunari didn’t end up seeing Misumi until lunch. The other boy was quiet as he ate his onigiri. 

“Hey, um, about yesterday….”

“Yeah?”

“You know, in music class…” Misumi cocked his head quizzically. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

“Oh, it’s alright!” He smiled. 

“It is?”

“Mm, yep!” He nodded. “Kazu didn’t see anything, did you? So you were telling the truth.”

“...yeah.” _Well, at least he’s not mad at me._ That was a relief. 

“What are you doing on the weekend?” They didn’t have school on Friday, so both of them had three days to do what they wanted. Well, two days, still, since one of them would be at the aquarium. 

Misumi shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Do you-”

“Miyoshi, Miyoshi!”

Kazunari’s head snapped up. “Kato?”

The child panted, his face red from running. “The tournament’s starting soon! Remember, you said you’d come watch!”

“...oh, yeah!” He jumped up. “Who are you playing?”

“Kazuki from fourth grade!” 

“Can I play?” Misumi asked. 

Kato shook his head. “No, but you can watch if you want. Come on!” He started running towards the circle of kids that had gathered on the concrete square near the door. 

“Do you wanna come?” Kazunari asked. 

Misumi looked at the other kids in the circle. Most of them were fourth graders, or his classmates. He shook his head. 


	14. do we really need the buddy system, anyways?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: parents fighting

His parents had been staying up later, whispering arguments that crept up the stairs despite their hushed voices. Stacks of envelopes with red stamps on them covered the kitchen countertop. Forget graduating med school and becoming a doctor at sixteen, Kazunari needed money _now_. But what job could a seven year old do?

The teacher was talking about the Tokugawa Shogunate. Kazunari scribbled down the names and dates on the chalkboard, then doodled a geometric cube in the margins. He shaded one of the sides. Maybe he could deliver packages? Or newspapers! There were lots of movies that had kids delivering newspapers. 

He drew a flower next to it, a chrysanthemum with tiny, looping petals. He could sell flowers...but he didn’t have any, except the ones in the front yard, and he didn’t think Mami would be happy if he picked them. He could take care of other peoples’ yards, though. Or - he drew a cat next - he could watch their pets! Satisfied, he flipped to the next page and started copying the board again. 

The woman at the post office shook her head. “Sorry sweetie, you have to be at least fifteen to work here.”

“Pleeeeease,” Kazunari stood on his tiptoes so he could see over the counter. “I’ll work really hard!”

She chuckled. “I believe you, but it’s federal law. Come back in a few years and we can talk then, okay? In the meantime, have a lollipop.” 

She pushed a plastic bowl across the counter. Kazunari scowled. He could tell when he was being patronized to. Still, he thanked the woman politely and left. 

Nobody on his street needed any help, either. 

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“What’s your rate?” ( _"My what?”_ ) “How much would I be paying you?” ( _"Oh! Um...a thousand yen an hour?”_ ) “Mmm...I’ll think about it.”

“No thank you.”

“Nah.”

“Don’t ever come to my house again.”

Kazunari jumped back as the door slammed in his face, almost choking on his half-eaten lollipop. (Yes, he’d taken one. He wasn’t about to turn down free candy.) Only one more house left. 

“Actually, I have been looking for someone to watch my cat.”

He perked up. “You have?”

“Can you be here every Tuesday from ten to twelve?”

He deflated. “No, sorry.”

The classroom was buzzing with excitement Wednesday morning, thanks to the full-colored brochures that had been put on all the desks.

“I wanna swim in the shark tank!” Nishimura held up his flyer, pointing to the picture of the hammerhead on the cover.

“Look, they have a dolphin show!” Tomoya squealed. “I hope we get to watch it!” 

“Settle down- settle down, everyone!” Ms. Yamamoto clapped her hands twice. “One two three, eyes on me!”

“On two, eyes on you!”

“Thank you.” She paused to give a few students time to stop chatting. Then she smiled. “Is everybody excited for the field trip?”

_“Yes!"_

“Great! There’s a few rules we need to go over first, though. First of all, since this is a school event, all of you should be wearing your uniforms. It’s expected to be in the tens, so bring your school-approved blazer or sweater. The bus will arrive at 9 am, so everyone needs….”

Misumi tuned her out as he looked at the pictures. There were sharks, and dolphins, and starfish, and they all had triangles! The penguins and otters and jellyfish didn’t have any triangles that he could see, but maybe they would when he saw them in real life. He folded down the corners of the brochure. 

“...Lastly, you’re all going to be using the buddy system for safety.”

The students held their breath. The next sentence would either make or break the field trip.

“I’ll let you pick your own partners.” 

There was a collective sigh of relief. Kazunari bit his lip. 

“You have until Thursday afternoon to decide. If you don’t have a partner by then, see me and I’ll assign one for you.”

“But teacher!” A girl raised her hand. “There are seventeen of us, that’s not an even number!”

“Very good, Amano. Yes, some of you will have to be in a group of three.”

_Okay,_ Kazunari thought, _maybe this would work._

Suzuki raised her hand. “Can me and Tomoya and Aoki be in our own group?”

“It’s ‘Tomoya and Aoki and I’, and yes, that’s fine with me.”

_Or not._

His gaze slid over to Misumi. The other boy had folded his flyer into a paper airplane, tossing it up and catching it as it nosedived back down. Kazunari opened his mouth-

“You’ll be my partner, right?”

And jumped. 

“Sorry,” Kato said, grabbing one of the chairs from an empty desk and dragging it to his. “Takeo and Masao said they were pairing up. So….”

“Um...actually, I was gonna…” 

“...oh.”

He frowned. Kazunari’s heart clenched. “But if you want to we can!”

“No, it’s fine.” Kato shook his head. “You were going to pair up with him, weren’t you? You should. You’re the only one who wants to, after all.”

“That’s not...” Kazunari wanted to protest, wanted to say that it wasn’t true, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

“It’s not fair,” he mumbled as he sat on the living room floor, his homework on the table in front of him. It wasn’t fair that he drew the short stick at the beginning of the year. It wasn’t fair that he was the one who had to sit in the back row.

“Nari, play!” Futaba tugged at his shirt, holding her pink ball in her other hand. He pulled away.

“Can’t you see I’m busy? Go play by yourself.”

She huffed, but went back to playing with her firetruck. He could hear his mom in the dining room, working on something on the computer, just like she had for the last several weeks. 

He copied one of the kanji. Stared at it for a second. It was too crooked, too wrong. He crossed it out once, then twice, then again _and again and again_ until the eyesore had been completely scribbled over. 

It wasn’t fair! He never asked to be Misumi’s only friend. He never asked to have to choose between his friends. He didn’t want any of this! Why did he have to-

The back door slammed shut. 

“Man, I’m starving!” His father announced as he walked into the room, stopping to ruffle Kazunari’s hair despite his protests before continuing to the kitchen. Kazunari’s own stomach growled. It was getting pretty late, he realized. Maybe some food would help him think better. 

He closed the workbook and put it up on a shelf where Futaba couldn’t reach it. (You never wanted to take chances when it came to schoolwork and nosy toddlers.) 

“You haven’t even started?”

Kazunari paused, hand still on the book he was putting up. 

“I’m sorry,” he could hear his mom snap. “I’ve been a little busy.”

“It’s already six o’clock! You couldn’t even order takeout?”

“You’re blaming me for it? You could have done it yourself!”

“I’ve been outside all day. You were in the kitchen. Excuse me for assuming you would make dinner.” His dad didn’t sound apologetic at all.

“Why? Because I’m a woman?”

“That’s not- don’t pull the sexism card with me, Reiko-”

Something pulled on Kazunari’s shirt. He looked down.

“Nariii,” Futaba whined, looking up at him. “I’m hungry.”

He picked her up. “I know.” 

They ended up getting pizza, the kind with the too-thin sauce and too-thick crust. His parents were quiet as they ate, only breaking the silence to ask Kazunari about school or to tell Futaba not to play with her food. 

Things were still tense when he left the next morning, but Kazunari had more pressing things to worry about. He was supposed to decide on a partner by the end of the day, and he hadn’t even begun to make progress. Kato had been his friend since last year, and he wasn’t loud like Masao and Takeo were but he was still a lot of fun. He was smart, too, and he probably knew a lot about the ocean so they could talk about that together. But...Misumi was fun to be around too, albeit in a totally different way. Sure, he’d probably spend the whole time pointing out all the triangles, or claiming he could talk to the dolphins or something similarly weird. But then he’d point to some tiny fish Kazunari had missed, eyes lighting up at the perfect triangular fin; jumping up and down as he asked him if he knew what the species’ name was. 

Misumi was humming softly as Kazunari slid into his desk that morning. He was still hanging onto the aquarium flyer, which now had a spiderweb of white cracks from the constant folding and refolding. 

“Hi.”

“Hi, Kazu!”

Kazunari bit his lip. It was a long shot, but maybe he could….

“Do you have a partner for the field trip yet?”

“No. Are we supposed to?” 

Kazunari inwardly facepalmed. “Yes.”

“Oh, okay.” He threw the paper airplane up. It hit the ceiling and fell back down. “Do you?”

“No.”

He waited for Misumi to say something, but the other boy was preoccupied with the plane. 

“Do you-” they both started. 

“You first.” Kazunari said.

“Um,” Misumi squirmed and shook his head. 

“Okay.” He inhaled. “I, uh, just wanted to ask if we could be partners. For the field trip. If you want.”

Misumi smiled. “Yes! I-”

“Aww, how cute.”

Misumi froze. Kazunari stiffened. 

“What do you want, Masao?” He said in his most neutral voice possible.

“Nothing. I just thought you were going with Kato.”

“He said it was fine….” Kazunari mumbled.

“Duh, of course he’d say that. We didn’t actually think you’d _want_ to go with the freak.”

Kazunari’s face burned. He wished the floor would open up right beneath his desk and swallow him whole. 

“I’ll talk to Kato,” he muttered. Masao nodded and turned around.

Things were quiet for a few minutes.

“Um, Kazu-” Misumi reached out, his hand freezing mid-air when Kazunari turned. 

“Yeah?”

He drew his hand back quickly. “We don’t have to be partners. Not if you don’t want to.” 

Kazunari sucked in a breath. “No, it’s fine.”

“But….”

“It’s fine,” he repeated. “I’ll talk to Kato. We’ll get it worked out. I’ll be your partner.”

_You’re the only one who wants to, after all._

“...okay.”

Kazunari couldn’t focus on the lesson today, either. His drawings were all useless, and more than that, they looked bad too. The flowers were lopsided, the dog looked like a mutated pig, the rocket ship a flying train. What could he do? _What could he do?_

“Miyoshi? Miyoshi!”

“What?” His head snapped up. “Um, twenty-seven!”

Several students started snickering. 

“Wonderful answer,” Ms. Yamamoto said. “However, I’m afraid we’re talking about history, not math. Can anyone else tell me the former name of Tokyo?”

Once again, Kazunari willed a minor earthquake to occur directly beneath him. He wanted to go home and hide under the covers. _Maybe I can fake being sick for the field trip._

The bell rang for lunch. Kazunari grabbed his bento and ran to catch up to Kato. 

“You didn’t mean what you said earlier, did you?”

“About what?” he stopped.

“About- about being fine if we didn’t go to the aquarium together.”

“Oh.” He started walking again. “Well, it was your decision.”

“I didn’t- I mean, you’re the one who said I should go with Ikaruga.”

“Only if you wanted to!”

“But I don’t know if I want to!” Kazunari blurted out. “I want to go with both of you.”

“That’s against the rules.”

“We can talk to the teacher, can’t we? Maybe-”

Kato shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“I want to go to the aquarium with you, Miyoshi. With all of us, together. Not him.”

Kazunari clenched his fist. “But-”

“I said you can do what you want,” Kato said bitterly. “If you want to go with Ikaruga instead of your friends, go ahead.”

Kazunari watched him walk away, frozen in place. He’d lost his appetite. 

“Kazu! Kazu!”

He closed his eyes. “What?” Opened them. Misumi was jumping up and down. “There’s triangle fish!”

“I know. You said that already.”

“Oh.” He stopped for a minute, frowning, then immediately bounced back up again. “I can’t wait to see the dolphins! Do you think they’ll have whales?”

“No.” Kazunari turned and started walking. Misumi followed him, still chattering incessantly.

“What about turtles? Do you like turtles? Or birds! Wait, birds aren’t fish…except for penguins, but they can’t fly so they don’t really count. Do you-”

“God, can’t you get a clue?”

Misumi stepped on the back of his shoe. “Huh?”

Kazunari whirled around. “You are so... _annoying!_ ” he snapped. “Nobody wants you here! Why don’t you understand that? _Just go away!_ ”

Misumi’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before dropping to the floor. He tugged at his sleeve.

“...oh…”

The bell rang. Kazunari pushed past him, stomping back to the classroom. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
